CREOLE  FAMILIES  OP 
NEW  ORLEANS 


'^h^yi^ 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NKW  YORK    •    nOSTON   •    CHICAGO  •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &   CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


CREOLE  FAMILIES  OF 
NETV  ORLEANS 


By 

GRACE  KING 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS  BY 
E.  WOODWARD 


NEW   YORK 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1921 

All  rights  reserved 


rOPYRKlHT.    1921.    BY   THE    MACMILLAN   COMPANY 


SET    IP    ANU    KLECTROTYPKD.  PI;BLISHI^D    MARCH.    1921 


DEDICATION 

TO 

ANNIE  RAGAN  KING 

MY  SISTER,  COMPANION,  FRIEND 


434930 


( 


PREFACE 

THIS  book  comes  in  response  to  a  long-felt  wish 
of  an  humble  student  of  Louisiana  history  to 
know  more  about  the  early  actors  in  it,  to  go  back 
of  the  printed  names  in  the  pages  of  Gayarr^  and 
IMartin,  and  peep,  if  possible,  into  the  personality 
of  the  men  who  followed  Bienville  to  found  a  city 
upon  the  Mississippi,  and  who,  remaining  on  the 
spot,  continued  their  good  work  by  founding 
families  that  have  carried  on  their  work  and  their 
good  names. 

It  has  been  a  pleasure  to  follow  the  traces  they 
impressed  upon  the  soil  two  hundred  years  ago,  and 
to  look  through  the  vista  of  years  that  opened  before 
them  when  they  crossed  the  seas,  trusting  their 
names,  their  fortune,  their  faith  to  a  new  country. 

Their  genealogical  records  bear  witness  to  their 
good  blood;  their  '^maintenances  de  noblesse''  are 
still  in  existence,  brought  with  them  from  France, 
in  simple  accord  with  what  they  considered  a 
family  necessity,  as  much  so  as  a  house  and  furniture. 
Traditions  are  still  carrying  a  pale  reflection  of 
coloring  and  wavering  outline  of  them.  Little 
stories  of  them  are  still  to  be  met  hanging  on  a 
withering  memory  like  shriveled  berries  on  a  tree 
that  the  next  blast  will  rend  from  their  twigs  and 
scatter  on  the  ground. 

Some  of  the  little  houses  they  built  are  still  stand- 
ing;   vital    statistics — their    baptisms,    marriages 

vn 


OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

and  deaths — are  still  distinct  in  the  old  registers  of 
St.  Louis  Cathedral.  Bits  of  old  furniture,  jewelry, 
glass,  old  miniatures,  portraits,  scraps  of  silk  and 
brocade,  flimsy  fragments  of  lace  can  yet  be  picked 
up  scattered  among  the  houses  of  the  old  streets 
they  trod. 

Much  was  in  existence  to  ease  the  work  of  the 
chronicler,  but  much,  alas!  was  found  lacking.  In 
some  instances  the  trail  grew  too  indistinct  to  be 
followed  with  confidence.  Too  late!  Too  late!  The 
chronicler  came  too  late.  Family  papers,  so  one 
excuse  ran,  had  been  destroyed  in  the  ^^great  fire'' 
(of  1788).  According  to  another  the  old  trunk  in 
which  a  careful  grandfather  had  packed  his  docu- 
ments had  gone  astray  in  the  panics  and  flights  of 
the  family  during  the  Civil  War  and  had  never  been 
heard  of  since;  or,  sadder  still,  the  faithful  memory 
which  carried  the  family  record,  grown  aged  and 
feeble,  had  lost  its  grip  on  the  past,  and  had  dropped 
its  jewel  out  of  its  human  setting,  as  many  a  fine 
stone  has  dropped  from  its  setting,  to  be  swept  out 
with  the  debris. 

The  plan  traced  in  advance  for  the  chronicle  was  a 
modest  one;  comprised  in  time  between  Bienville 
and  Claiborne,  containing  only  the  names  mentioned 
in  the  historical  reports  of  the  period.  But  as  the 
work  and  the  pleasure  of  it  progressed  these  limits 
had  to  be  disregarded.  Families  ramified  and  pro- 
longed their  lives  in  an  unforeseen  way.  The  chil- 
dren of  the  best  men  under  Bienville  became  the 
French  heroes  under  Ulloa;  and  their  children,  push- 
ing on  through  the  Spanish  Domination,  became  the 
strong  men  of  the  city  under  the  American  flag  and 
fought  with  Jackson  in  the  War  of  1812.    And  still 

vni 


PREFACE 

further  their  children  fared  on  bravely  to  wear  the 
gray  of  the  Confederate  Army,  and  onward  still 
another  generation  advanced  soaring  higher  and 
higher,  and  to-day  we  see  them,  as  in  the  famous  pic- 
ture in  the  Paris  Pantheon  marching  across  the  sky 
of  glory,  these  fine  old  French  names  of  Louisiana 
in  the  last  (and  may  it  be  the  last!)  world  war;  speed- 
ing back  to  France  in  defense  of  their  ancestral 
motherland  to  fight,  suffer  and  die,  and  be  buried 
there,  giving  back  to  French  earth  its  dust ! 

The  chronicler  held  her  way  through  it  all,  too  well 
pleased  with  the  story  confided  to  her  to  realize  the 
end  before  her — the  end  of  the  book,  not  the  end 
of  the  story.  In  truth,  like  the  horizon,  the  end 
seemed  to  recede  before  her  as  she  advanced,  and  so 
the  last  page  of  the  book  caught  her  unawares,  as 
the  last  day  of  life  does  us  all. 

And  so  at  the  end  of  her  book,  the  author  finds,  as 
doubtless  she  will  do  at  the  end  of  her  life,  that  what 
she  has  accomplished  bears  but  a  pitiful  resemblance 
to  w^hat  she  set  out  to  do,  and  with  '^finis'^  bows  her 
head  in  contrition  for  her  many,  many  sins  of 
omission. 

Throughout  the  volume  may  be  found  in  footnotes 
the  grateful  acknowledgment  of  the  help  accorded 
her  on  her  way  by  which  she  has  been  able  to  ac- 
complish the  little  she  has  done.  But  she  would 
give  more  explicit  mention  of  her  gratitude  to,  first 
and  foremost:  The  Louisiana  Historical  Society, 
for  the  freedom  it  gave  her  of  its  records ;  to  Gaspard 
Cusachs,  its  president;  to  Heloise  Hulse  Cruzat,  its 
corresponding  secretary  and  ever  ready  helper  in 
historical  need ;  to  Miss  Freret,  its  librarian,  whose 
intelligent  assistance  was  never  invoked  in  vain;  to 

IX 


OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  \ 

the  Howard  Memorial  Library  and  its  scholarly 
librarian,  Mr.  William  Beer,  and  to  his  courteous 
assistants;  to  Mr.  T.  P.  Thompson,  whose  rare 
collection  of  Americana  was  cordially  placed  at 
the  author's  service;  to  Mr.  G.  Lugano,  the  able 
archivist  of  St.  Louis  Cathedral;  to  Trist  Wood, 
Esq.,  for  steady  and  constant  assistance  in  the 
collection  of  his  family  data;  to  Meloncy  Soniat, 
Esq.,  for  ever  kind  response  to  demands  upon  his 
time  and  manuscript  store  of  precious  genealogical 
records;  to  Mr.  Elsworth  Woodward,  for  his  illus- 
trations, and  his  cordial  collaboration  in  heart  and 
spirit  with  the  aim  of  the  book,  which  in  this  respect, 
at  least,  has  been  able  to  fulfill  the  author's  highest 
expectations. 


CONTENTS 

PREFACE 
CHAPTER  I 

A   LA    NOUVELLE    ORLEANS 3 

CHAPTER  II 
Marigny  de  Mandeville 9 

CHAPTER  III 
Bernard  de  Marigny 23 

CHAPTER  IV 

Bayou  St.  Jean — The  Dreux  Family         ...     59 

CHAPTER  V 
A  Romance  of  The  Bayou  St.  Jean        .      .      .67 

CHAPTER  VI 
De  Pontalba 72 

CHAPTER  VII 
RouER  DE  Villeray 133 

CHAPTER  VIII 
D'Arensbourg 154 

CHAPTER  IX 
De  la  Chaise 159 


CHAPTER  X 
Lafr^iniere        

.      .   169 

CHAPTER  XI 

Labedoyere  Huchet  de  Kernion 

.      .  201 

CHAPTER  XII 
De  Livaudais 212 


CONTENTS 
CHAPTER  XIII 

SONIAT   DU    FOSSAT 221 

CHAPTER  XIV 
De  la  Vergne 236 

CHAPTER  XV 
DeBor6 239 

CHAPTER  XVI 
Gayarr6 256 

CHAPTER  XVII 
Charles  Gayarre 269 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

BOULIGNY 291 

CHAPTER  XIX 
Almona&ter 305 

•    CHAPTER  XX 
De  la  Ronde 313 

CHAPTER  XXI 
Chalmette 318 

CHAPTER  XXII 
Cruzat  323 

CHAPTER  XXIII 
Jumonville  de  Villiers 337 

CHAPTER  XXIV 
Lavillebeuvre 343 

CHAPTER  XXV 
Grima 350 

CHAPTER  XXVI 
Forstall 357 

XII 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XXVII 
Macarty 368 

CHAPTER  XXVIII 
De  Buys 383 

CHAPTER  XXIX 
Canonge 392 

CHAPTER  XXX 
DuBouRG 397 

CHAPTER  XXXI 
Charest  de  Lauzon 406 

CHAPTER  XXXII 
Bringier 413 

CHAPTER  XXXIII 
Tureaud 419 

CHAPTER  XXXIV 

GaRRIGUES    de    FlAUGEAC DE    ROALDES       .        .        .    423 

CHAPTER  XXXV 
PiTOT  429 

CHAPTER  XXXVI 
Roffignac 435 

CHAPTER  XXXVII 
St.  Geme 443 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII 
Allain 446 

CHAPTER  XXXIX 
Beauregard 452 

CHAPTER  XL 
Alc^e  Fortier 461 

XIII 


LIST  OF  PLATES 

Frontispiece 

Type  of  Wealthy  Creole  House  of  the  French  Period,  Dumaine 

and  Dauphin  Streets — Servants,  Quarters  in  the  Rear         .   138 
Oaks  at  Versailles,  de  la  Ronde  Plantation — the  Chalmette 

Battlefield  to  the  Left 314 

Vestibule  of  Grima  House — Newel  Posts  of  Brass,  Balustrade 

of  Mahogany 356 

Rue  Dumaine 408 

LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  TEXT 

Ursulincs  and  Chartres  Streets.    Built  in  the  time  of  Bienville — 

now  demolished 11 

Royal  below  Dumaine  Street  (used  as  Court  House  in  1815) 
where  General  Jackson  was  tried  for  contempt  of  court 

before  Judge  Hall 41 

Briquette   entre   Poieaux    (bricked  between   posts).     Type   of 

Pioneer  house  in  country  outside  of  New  Orleans  .        .     69 

Villa  on  Levee  Road  below  New  Orleans,  facing  West  (now 

demohshed)  77 

The  Napoleon  House  (with  the  belvedere)  on  Chartres  Street 

back  of  the  Court  House 121 

Lit  de  Repos.    A  beautiful  specimen  of  "Robert  Adam"     .        .  241 

Toilette  Table.    St.  Domingo  mahogany 267 

Eighteenth  Century  Piano.     Mahogany,  inlaid  with  brass       .  275 

Dauphine  near  Dumaine  Street 329 

Empire  Work  Table  of  St.  Domingo  mahogany  and  brass         .  371 
Jefferson  Street,  back  of  Pontalba  buildings         ....  375 

Toulouse  Street,  near  "Old  Levee"  Street 431 

Porte  Cochcre  on  Chartres  Street         439 

Rampart  and  St.  Peter  Streets 457 


CHAPTER  I 

A  LA  NOUVELLE  ORLEANS 

"Orleans,  Gentilly, 

Pontalba,  Marigny, 

Bourbon!  Bourbon  I" 
These  are  the  words  that  come  to  me 
(The  haunting  turn  of  an  old  refrain) 
From  the  Siren  City  beside  the  sea, 
Child  of  the  valour  of  France  and  Spain. 
She  sits  there  weaving  her  olden  spells. 
The  years  through  her  lissom  fingers  run 
To  form  but  a  chaplet  whereon  she  tells, 
The  names  of  her  lovers,  one  by  one! 

Gayoso,  Galvez,  Bouligny, 

Caso-Calvo,  Derbigny! 
Don  Almonaster's  bells  intone: 
For  Bienville  and  for  Serigny, 
For  D' Iberville,  for  Assigny, 

They  make  incessant  moan. 

"Orleans,  Gentilly, 

Pontalba,  Marigny, 

Bourbon!  Bourbon!" 

— William  McLennan. 

THE  old  Creole  families  of  New  Orleans  date  from 
the  foundation  of  the  city,  and  even  before  that — 
from  the  settlement  of  Mobile,  Dauphin  Island  and 
Biloxi,  their  good  old  names  figuring  in  the  lists  of 
military,  naval  and  civil  officers  who  followed  Iber- 
ville to  the  discovery  of  the  Mississippi  and  remained 
with  Bienville  to  hold  on  to  the  French  possession 
of  it. 


' : :4- '  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

It  may  in  fact  be  said  that  New  Orleans  brought 
hei  population  into  the  world  with  her,  or  rather,  ^ 
was  furnished  in  advance  with  it,  as  a  baby  is  with 
a  layette,  or  a  bride  with  a  trousseau.    Like  a  layette 
or  a  trousseau,  the  material  from  which  the  popula-  | 
tion  was  made  was  of  the  finest  and  strongest,  and  ( 
it  has  worn  well.  \ 

The  men  under  Bienville  who,  for  twenty  years,  ' 
had  borne  the  brunt  of  the  hardships  of  colonial  ^ 
settlement  in  a  savage  country,  were  well  content  i 
to  follow  him  to  the  last  goal  in  their  enterprise,  . 
the  foundation  of  a  city  on  the  Mississippi — not  a 
,  fort  nor  a  settlement,  but  a  city — whose  image  and  ^ 
superscription  was  to  be  ^'France,  her  sights  and  J 
\sounds,  dreams  and  laughter."  [: 

They  builded  better  than  they  knew,  as  we  can 
judge  to-day.  The  ground  selected  was  quickly 
cleared  of  its  forest;  the  streets  were  laid  out  and 
named;  homes  were  built  (to  continue  the  feminine 
simile)  just  as  the  corbeille  is  still  prepared  to  con- 
tain the  layette  and  trousseau. 

Each  square  formed  by  the  intersection  of  the 
streets  was  divided  into  four  allotments,  and  in  each 
allotment  was  erected  a  house — a  low,  square,  eight 
or  four-room  cottage  built  of  split  cypress  logs,  raised 
a  few  feet  above  the  ground,  with  high  ridged  roof 
covered  with  bark,  and  with  solid  cypress  doors  and 
windows;  the  type  of  building  that  has  perpetuated 
itself  in  the  city.  It  was  built  to  last  and  it  did  last, 
for  a  century  and  a  half.* 

The  careful  Bienville  provided  also  a  site  for  a 

*  A  specimen  was  spared  until  recently,  when  it  was  demolished 
in  obedience  to  some  civic  decree.    It  was  situated  on  a  corner  of  J 


Cliartrcs  Street  opposite  the  site  of  the  old  Ursuline  Convent. 


A  LA  NOUVELLE  ORLEANS  5 

church,  and  pre-empted  the  space  in  front  of  it  for 
a  Place  d'Armes.  The  first  church  was  also  of  the 
most  primitive  form  of  construction — a  low,  oblong 
building,  only  large  enough  to  hold  its  absolute 
necessities,  as  it  were,  of  divine  worship;  behind  it 
was  the  graveyard.  As  it  was  planned  in  1720  it 
is,  in  a  general  way,  seen  to-day. 

The  squares  were  surrounded  by  deep  ditches, 
which,  when  filled  with  water,  made  little  islands  of 
their  enclosures  and  so,  in  New  Orleans^  common 
speech,  a  square  is  still  called  an  ''islet." 

The  first  census  of  the  city,  taken  in  1726,  gives 
the  names  and  addresses  of  its  first  inhabitants. 
To  cite  a  few  of  them:  on  Old  Levee  Street  (as  it  is 
called  to-day),  the  ''Rue  du  Quay"  of  1726,  were  the 
hospital,  the  ^^direction'^  or  official  building,  the  house 
of  M.  Pauger,  the  engineer  who  laid  out  the  city;  of 
M.  Trudeau  and  his  six  children;  and  that  of  "M. 
de  Noyan  in  which  Petit  de  Levilliers  and  his  wife 
resided." 

On  Chartres  Street  was  the  house  occupied  by  the 
Jesuits,  and  the  "large  house  where  lived  de  la 
Chaise,  his  wife  and  two  children";  St.  Martin,  with 
Jiis  wife  and  three  children;  Marest  de  la  Tour;  and 
Bellair. 

On  Cond6  Street  (Chartres,  below  the  Cathedral) 
was  the  * 'small  house  of  Joseph  Carriere,  where  he 
stops  when  he  comes  to  town";  and  the  houses 
of  de  Lassus  and  M.  de  Boisbriant,  Conomander 
General. 

On  Royal  Street,  the  trades  people  seemed  to 
cluster — carpenters,  cabinet  makers,  a  wig  maker,  a 
shoemaker,  a  wagon  maker,  a  "chandelier"  (candle 
maker),  armorers. 


6  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 


Jean  Pascal,  with  "fat  wife  and  child^^  lived  along-  , 
side  a  large  house  belonging  to  M.  Chauvin  de  la  '> 
Fr^ni^re,  ''where  he  stays  when  he  comes  to  town"  I 
(his  plantation  was  above  the  city);  then  followed  \ 
the  house  where  M.  Fazende,  the  Councillor,  lived 
''with  wife  and  child,  mother-in-law  and  brother-in- 
law." 

On  Bourbon  Street,  we  find  the  surgeons  Michel  , 
Brosset  and  Pouyadon  de  la  Tour;  the  rest  of  the  i 
street  being  filled  up  as  was  Royal  with  trades  j 
people,  each  one  provided  with  wife  and  children  , 
and  designated  by  a  sobriquet — "la  Bouillonerie" 
called  "la  Douceur";  Joseph  Cham  called  "la  Rose." 

Bienville  Street  was  more  aristocratic.    On  it  stood  j 
the  mansion  of  the  Governor  and  the  houses  of  M.  de  ' 
Chavannes,  Secretary  of  the  Council ;  of  M.  Fleuriau, 
Attorney  General;  of  Dr.  Alexandre,  Surgeon  Major   ; 
of  the  Hospital,  etc.,  etc.  ^ 

On  St.  Philippe  Street,  lived  Chesseau,  the  "can- 
nonier"  of  the  town.    On  Barracks  Street,  St.  Pierre, 
Dumaine,  Ste.  Anne,  and  Orleans  Streets,  lived  other   . 
useful  members  of  the  community. 

In  1726,  the  population  numbered  880,  of  which 
65  were  servants  and  129  slaves.  There  were  only 
ten  horses  in  it. 

By  this  time  the  city  had  become  the  capital  of 
the  province,  and  the  seat  of  government,  with  the 
legal  institution  of  a  Superior  Council,  whose  first 
Councillors  were  sent  from  France.  A  convent  of 
Capuchins  had  also  been  established  for  the  service 
of  the  Cathedral. 

Tall,  pointed  picket  fences  surrounaed  the  houses, 
built  as  was  the  custom  in  France  "entre  cour  et 
jardin,^*    In  the  earliest  records,  statistical  items  are 


i 


A  LA  NOUVELLE  ORLEANS  7 

accompanied  by  pretty  accounts  of  the  flower  gardens 
of  the  city,  planted  with  seeds  brought  from  France, 
and  cuttings  shipped  from  Havana  and  Porto  Rico. 
The  oleanders  that  bloom  in  the  Place  d'Armes  to-day, 
doubtless  are  descendants  of  original  stocks.  The 
tall  fences  were  reinforced  by  inside  hedges  of  orange 
trees,  the  sour  variety  being  preferred  as  more  hardy; 
the  ripened  fruit,  glittering  hke  Hghted  lanterns 
in  their  dark  foliage,  over  the  sharp-pointed  tops  of 
the  pickets;  their  blossoms  showering  down  on  the 
pathway  outside,  embalming  the  air  with  heavenly 
perfume.  At  the  back  of  the  houses,  across  the  yard, 
were  the  quarters  of  the  servants,  the  kitchen  and 
household  ^'offices.'^ 

There  was  apparently  little  ' 'roughing  it'^  during 
these  early  days  of  the  city's  life.  Indeed,  compared 
with  life  to-day,  the  little  cypress  cottages  and  their 
households  are  to  be  envied  by  the  brides  of  to-day 
as  they  look  back  upon  the  brides  of  two  centm-ies 
ago,  who  arrived  from  France,  trailing  their  illus- 
trious heritage  of  family  names  behind  them. 

They  brought  with  them  for  their  new  homes  an 
outfit  of  furniture,  linen  and  glass ;  and  for  themselves 
silks,  satins,  laces  and  jewelry.  They  found  awaiting 
them  the  best  of  servants,  selected  with  a  careful  eye 
from  a  market  stocked  with  samples  of  the  best  tribes 
of  Africa,  and  bought  without  regard  to  price;  and 
pro\dsions  from  the  rich  country  about  them — fish, 
flesh,  game,  vegetables  and  fruits ;  with  wine  flowing 
generously  and  good  company;  their  own  language, 
the  good  manners  of  the  Old  World,  and  a  society 
that,  although  gay,  was  kept  within  the  bounds  of 
the  proper  and  the  discreet  by  the  rigid  maintenance 
of  the  etiquette  of  society  in  Paris,  and  the  strict 


8  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  1 

enforcement  of  French  laws  for  preserving  the  purity   , 
of  blood  and  family  prestige.  j 

Four  records  of  baptism  on  each  side  were  required 
before  marriage  between  any  loving  pair  could  be 
solemnized.  Parentsand  grandparents  had  to  make  ; 
proof  of  legitimacy  by  certificates  from  the  church, 
and  other  and  more  particular  enUghtenment  was 
ascertained  in  private  ways.  The  scrutiny  was  keen 
and  inexorable. 


CHAPTER  II 
MARIGNY  DE  MANDEVILLE 

IN  the  chronicles  of  the  old  Creole  families  of  New 
Orleans,  the  name  of  Marigny  de  Mandeville 
stands  first.  In  truth,  the  family  antedates  the  city 
itself;  and  through  two  centuries  of  its  life  contrib- 
uted active  workers  to  its  history. 

In  the  list  of  officers  selected  to  accompany  Iber- 
ville to  the  discovery  of  the  Mississippi  in  1699, 
appears  the  name  of  a  Josselin  de  Marigny,  ^'Enseigne 
en  Second  de  la  Companie  d^Arquian/^  Bienville 
was  midshipman  on  the  same  vessel.  It  is  not  yet 
made  clear  whether  JosseHn  was  connected  with  the 
founder  of  the  Louisiana  family,  although  the  coin- 
cidence of  the  surname  and  the  date  is  too  striking 
not  to  suggest  the  probability  of  it.  The  name  of 
Josselin  occurs  but  this  once  in  our  annals,  while 
''M.  de  Marigny"  is  mentioned  in  the  chronicles  of 
the  earhest  explorations  of  Bienville  around  Mobile 
in  1704. 

The  Louisiana  family  is  usually  traced  to  Pierre 
Philippe,  Sieur  de  Marigny  de  Mandeville,  to  whom 
were  issued  letters  patent  of  nobility,  signed  Louis 
and  Ph^lipeau,  dated  Paris,  1654,  and  registered  '^a 
la  Cour  des  Aydes  et  Comptes  de  Rouen,  1656.'^  By 
another  letter  patent  issued  at  St.  Germain  en  Laye, 
1671,  signed  Louis  and  Colbert,  the  title  of  Sieur  de 
Hautmesnil  was  conferred  upon  the  son,  Jean  Vincent 
Philippe,  for  services  rendered,  ''en  la  Nelle,  France.'* 

9 


10  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

The  first  of  the  name  of  whom  we  have  any  sure 
data  in  Louisiana  is  Frangois  Philippe  de  Marigny  de 
Mandeville,  Chevalier  de  St.  Louis,  born  at  Bayeux, 
Normandy.*  He  married  Madeleine  Le  Maires, 
daughter  of  Marguerite  Lamothe,  native  of  Paris, 
Paroisse  St.  Sulpice,  and  of  Pierre  Le  Maire,  probably 
of  the  same  family  as  the  Missionary  Geographer, 
Frangois  Le  Maire,  who  wrote  a  ^^M^moire  sur  la 
Louisiane  1718,"  and  drew  a  map  of  the  country. 

Frangois  Philippe  was  an  officer  of  Infantry  in 
Canada  in  1709,  and  afterwards  ^^  Commandant  des 
Troupes  en  Louisiane.'^  In  1714  he  received  his 
commission  as  Captain  and  later  was  made  Chevalier 
de  St.  Louis.  He  was  placed  in  command  of  Fort 
Cond6  near  Mobile,  where  he  is  recorded  as  serving 
without  pay.  On  the  first  map  of  Mobile,  there  is 
an  allotment  marked  ''M.  de  Marigny.'' 

In  1724  the  Company  of  Mandeville  is  mentioned 
among  the  military  companies  stationed  at  New 
Orleans.  Subsequently  he  was  made  Major  de 
Place,  or  Military  Commandant  there.  It  is  pre- 
sumalDle  that  he  was  with  Bienville  when  the  latter 
had  the  site  of  New  Orleans  laid  off  by  the  Royal 
Engineers,  and  that  he  witnessed  its  slow  upbuilding 
and  its  gradual  growth  of  population. 

By  1724  the  city's  struggle,  not  for  existence  but 
for  official  recognition,  was  over;  and  Bienville's 
ambition  that  it  should  be  the  capital  of  the  province 
was  realized.  It  was  made  the  seat  of  government. 
The  Superior  Council  had  been  removed  thither  from 

*  From  the  "Biological  and  Genealogical  Notes  concerning  the 
Family  of  Philippe  de  Mandeville,  Ecuyer  Sieur  de  Marigny, 
1709-1880,"  by  J.  W.  Cruzat. 

Louisiana  Historical  Publications,  Vol.  V,  1911. 


MARIGNY  DE  MANDEVILLE  13 

Biloxi,  and  it  held  its  regular  sittings  in  the  Govern- 
ment Building  facing  the  river.  A  hospital,  the 
barracks  and  other  public  buildings  for  military  and 
civil  offices  had  been  erected. 

The  Chapel  of  St.  Louis,  the  precursor  of  the 
present  Cathedral,  had  been  built,  with  the  necessary- 
house  for  its  priest.  The  allotments  of  ground  made 
around  the  Place  d'Armes  had  been  surrounded 
by  ditches  and  raised  walks,  and  were  being  grad- 
ually filled  by  the  gardens  and  low,  four-roomed 
cypress  cottages  that  constituted  the  first  residences 
of  its  citizens. 

It  was  doubtless  in  such  a  house  that  M.  de 
Marigny  lived,  with  his  wife  and  two  children,  on 
Chartres  Street,  according  to  the  Census  of  1726. 
He  died  here  in  1728  and  was  interred,  as  a  mark  of 
distinction,  in  the  Parish  Church  of  St.  Louis.  The 
Marigny  tomb  is  still  to  be  seen,  marked  by  a  large 
white  marble  stone,  which  bears  the  Marigny  coat 
of  arms  and  the  inscription  of  three  generations  of 
them,  written  in  French.  It  is  situated  on  the  left 
aisle  of  the  church,  at  the  foot  of  the  altar  of  *^Our 
Lady  of  Lourdes.^^ 

In  1729,  his  widow  married  Frangois  Ignace  Brou- 
tin,  ^^Capitaine  Ing^nieur  du  Roi  en  cette  colonic  et 
Commandant  des  Natchez.^'  Of  this  marriage  were 
born  several  children;  among  them  two  daughters. 
One  married  Jean  Delfau  de  Pont  alba,  and  the  other 
Louis  Xavier  de  Lino  de  Chalmette,  thus  uniting 
three  of  the  most  important  families  of  New  Orleans. 

By  her  marriage  with  Marigny,  Madeleine  Le 
Maire  had  one  son,  Antoine  Philippe,  Ecuyer,  Sieur 
de  Marigny  de  Mandeville,  Chevalier  de  St.  Louis. 
He  was  born  in  Mobile  in  1722,  and  had  for  god- 


14  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

parents  Chateaugu^,  brother  of  Bienville,  and  Mar- 
guerite le  Sueur,  wife  of  Nicolas  Chauvin  de  Lafr6- 
niere,  mother  of  the  celebrated  Lafreniere,  the 
famous  patriot  who  was  executed  by  O'Reilly  in 
1769. 

Antoine  Philippe  married,  in  1748,  Frangoise  de 
Lisle,  presumably  the  daughter  of  Guillaume  de  Lisle, 
Geographer  to  the  King,  whose  maps  of  Louisiana, 
1703-1712,  ruled  for  a  long  period  the  geographical 
world  of  France  as  the  best  and,  in  fact,  the  only 
authoritative  source  of  information  on  the  subject 
of  the  Mississippi  and  Louisiana. 

Antoine  Phihppe  wrote  a  ''M^moire  sur  la  Louisi- 
ane,^'  and  became  himself  an  enterprising  explorer 
and  expert  geographer.  In  the  words  of  Bossu,  the 
historian,  ''M.  de  Marigny  de  Mandeville,  an  officer 
of  distinction,  undertook  with  the  consent  of  the 
Governor  to  make  new  discoveries  around  the  Isle 
of  Barataria,  and  it  was  in  connection  with  this  that 
he  worked  to  produce  a  general  map  of  the  Colony. 
This  officer  made,  at  his  own  expense  and  with  the 
indefatigable  zeal  of  a  worthy  citizen,  the  explora- 
tion of  this  unknown  country." 

According  to  his  portrait  in  the  Gaspar  Cusach 
collection  of  the  Louisiana  Historical  Society, 
Marigny  was  a  refined,  aristocratic,  scholarly  looking 
officer,  wearing  a  p6ruque  and  queue.  He  enjoyed 
with  the  rest  of  his  fellow  citizens  the  calm  and 
equable  administration  of  the  Marquis  de  Vaudreuil, 
who  succeeded  Bienville  as  Governor  of  the  colony 
in  1743,  when  in  spite  of  much  civic  friction  and  the 
continual  insubordination  of  the  Indians  under  the 
encroaching  British  influence  over  them,  Louisiana 
grew  in  strength  and  importance.    The  city  began 


MARIGNY  DE  MANDEVILLE  15 

to  take  on  some  show  of  wealth  and  social  pretension, 
while  the  population  increased  measurably. 

But  when  the  courtly  Vaudreuil  left  the  colony 
in  1783,  he  was  succeeded  by  M.  de  Kerlerec,  a  bluff 
Captain  in  the  Royal  Marines,  whose  character  and 
methods  of  government  were  in  violent  contrast  to 
those  of  the  noble  Marquis.  The  city  under  Kerlerec 
suffered  all  the  discomforts  of  a  violent  housecleaning 
at  the  hands  of  a  vigorous  shrewish  housekeeper,  who 
quarreled  and  found  fault  with  all  subordinates.  The 
contention  between  him  and  his  Commissary,  Roche- 
more,  broke  all  the  official  etiquette  that  had  hitherto 
restrained  such  quarrels,  and  the  innovation  ensued 
of  the  participation  in  it  of  the  wives  of  the  principals 
— Madame  de  Kerlerec  and  Madame  de  Rochemore. 
Each  one  had  her  feminine  partisans,  who  (as  ever 
with  such  partisans,  zealous  to  indiscretion)  warred 
so  well  that  soon  the  whole  social  element  of  New 
Orleans  was  divided  into  two  hostile  camps. 

In  default  of  newspapers  the  publicity  of  accusa- 
tions and  insinuations  was  obtained  by  means  of 
pasquinades  and  lampoons  affixed  to  the  corners  of 
the  streets.  The  mordant  wit  of  these  pleased 
immensely  and  was  enjoyed  by  each  side  in  turn. 
Unfortunately,  no  specimen  of  these  was  preserved, 
to  the  great  regret  of  succeeding  historians. 

The  officers  of  the  garrison,  naturally,  did  not 
remain  neutral.  Marigny  distinguished  himself 
among  the  keenest  supporters  of  Rochemore  against 
Kerlerec,  who  with  military  promptness  arrested  him 
and  a  bunch  of  his  supporting  brother  officers  and 
summarily  shipped  them  to  France  on  a  departing 
vessel. 

Rochemore,  the  Commissary,  was  sent  to  France 


16  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

at  the  same  time,  as  was  Jean  Baptiste  d'Estrehan, 
the  Royal  Treasurer  of  the  colony,  described  by 
Kerlerec  as  being  ^'too  rich  and  dangerous. '^  ''But 
if  I  send  away  all  the  mauvaises  tetes  here,'^  he 
wrote,  ''what  would  remain  of  the  population?" 

On  his  arrival  in  France,  Marigny  petitioned 
Choiseul  to  know  the  cause  of  his  ill  treatment, 
accusing  Kerlerec  of  abuse  of  power  and  other 
violations  of  duty.  To  his  petition  he  annexed 
two  certificates,  one  from  Bienville  and  one  from 
Vaudreul,  containing  the  highest  commendations 
of  himself. 

The  officers  were  pardoned  on  promise  of  good 
behavior,  but  the  arrival  shortly  afterwards  of 
Kerlerec  himself  in  Paris  (recalled  to  answer  the 
charges  against  him)  proved  too  much  for  their 
submissive  disposition.  With  vindictive  pens  they 
wrote  and  pubfished  a  pamphlet  against  their  adver- 
sary, who  replied  so  promptly  and  effectively  that  the 
officers  were  now  sent  to  the  Bastille  and  kept  there 
for  a  year  and  a  month.  On  their  release,  neverthe- 
less, they  returned  to  the  charge,  and  making  good 
their  accusations  against  Kerlerec,  the  latter  was  con- 
demned to  exile  and  was  ordered  not  to  approach 
Paris  nearer  than  thirty  leagues. 

Antoine  Philippe  returned  to  New  Orleans  and 
died  there  in  1779.  He  was  buried  in  the  St.  Louis 
Cathedral,  his  name  being  second  on  the  family 
tombstone. 

By  his  marriage  with  Frangois  de  ITsle,  Antoine 
de  Marigny  had  two  children:  Pierre  Enguerrand 
dc  Marigny,  born  in  New  Orleans  in  1750,  and 
Madeleine  Philippe  de  Marigny. 

The    name    Enguerrand    recalls    the    celebrated 


MARIGNY  DE  MANDEVILLE  17 

Enguerrand  de  Marigny,  Superintendent  of  Finance 
under  Philippe  le  Bel  in  1315,  who  was  hanged  on 
the  gibbet  at  Montfaugon,  after  an  iniquitous  trial. 
The  name,  however,  was  dropped  by  his  Louisiana 
namesake,  who  retained  only  the  less  illustrious 
Pierre  Philippe  of  his  immediate  ancestors.  He 
married  Jeanne  Marie  d'Estrehan,  daughter  of  Jean 
Baptiste  d'Estrehan,  Treasurer  of  the  King,  a 
Frenchman  of  distinguished  family,  who  had  filled 
the  post  of  Royal  Treasurer  until  Kerlerec,  ostensibly 
from  motives  of  prudence,  ordered  him  back  to 
France  as  being  ^'too  rich  and  dangerous."  D'Estre- 
han's  wife  was  Catherine  de  Gauvry.  (A  Captain 
de  Gauvry  came  to  Louisiana  and  served  under  Bien- 
ville in  IMobile  in  1720.) 

Jeanne  Marie  d'Estrehan  had  a  sister  married  to 
Etienne  de  Bor^  (grandfather  of  Charles  Gayarre 
the  historian),  and  another  to  Favre  d'Aunoy,  the 
French  Royal  Commissioner  at  New  Orleans.  Her 
brother  married  a  Miss  Maxent,  who  subsequently 
became  the  wife  of  Governor  Bernardo  de  Galvez, 
thus  binding  by  marriage  more  of  the  great  French 
families  together. 

Of  Marigny's  wife  we  have  no  record,  but  Charles 
Gayarre  has  contributed  to  literature  a  pretty 
description  of  her  sister,  his  grandmother.  And  it 
is  not  of  record  or  tradition  that  any  of  the  d'Estre- 
han sisters  differed  from  Madame  de  Bore,  a  perfect 
type  of  the  grande  dame  of  St.  Cyr,  where  she  was 
educated. 

Pierre  Philippe  de  Marigny  was  too  young  at  the 
time  to  take  part  in  the  revolt  against  Ulloa;  and, 
therefore,  had  no  share  in  the  glory  of  the  French 
patriots,  who  sacrificed  their  lives  in  their  devotion 


18  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

to  France.  As  he  grew  to  manhood  under  the 
Spanish  Domination,  he  accepted  it  calmly,  conform- 
ing successfully  to  its  regime,  with  which  he  was 
connected  intimately  as  brother-in-law  to  Governor 
Galvez. 

He  was  made  Colonel  of  MiHtia,  and  put  in  com- 
mand of  the  new  Spanish  town  of  Galvezton,  near 
Baton  Rouge.  He  became  a  friend  and  associate  of 
Carondelet,  whom  he  knew  as  a  man  of  character 
and  abiUty;  but,  according  to  his  son  Bernard,  he 
knew  how  to  oppose  him  when  he  thought  it  neces- 
sary. At  the  time  when  the  inimical  demonstrations 
of  the  West  against  Spain  threatened  the  security  of 
the  city,  Carondelet  called  upon  all  Louisiana  to  take 
arms,  and  he  had  the  militia  organized  by  Philippe 
de  Marigny  de  Mandeville. 

He  it  was  who  built  up  the  colossal  Marigny  for- 
tune, reputed  to  be  seven  millions  at  the  time  of  his 
death.  To  concessions  obtained  from  France  by  his 
father,  he  added  large  concessions  granted  to  him  by 
Spain,  and,  profiting  by  opportunities  such  as  always 
are  offered  during  a  period  of  political  reconstruction 
to  speculators,  he  invested  in  real  estate,  buying  large 
plantations  above  the  city  on  the  river  front,  which, 
added  to  his  large  plantations  below  the  city,  made 
him  not  only  the  greatest  landowner  of  New  Orleans, 
but  also  its  richest  citizen. 

Marigny  purchased  also  a  princely  tract  of  mag- 
nificently wooded  land  on  the  opposite  shore  of  Lake 
Pontchartrain  from  New  Orleans  which,  in  honor  of 
its  growth  of  trees,  he  called  Fontainebleau.  He  built 
here  the  wooden  cottage  (of  the  modest  New  Orleans 
type)  which  still  exists,  where  with  his  family  and  a 
great  retinue  of  servants  he  was  wont  to  pass  the  hot 


MARIGNY  DE  MANDEVILLE  19 

months  of  summer.  His  city  residence,  as  described 
by  those  who  remember  it,  was  situated  in  local 
parlance  ''on  the  levee,"  facing  the  river,  in  the 
territory  of  the  old  Marigny  plantation,  somewhere 
(vaguely  located)  between  the  Esplanade  and  the 
Champs  Elys6es,  where  he  lived  in  princely  state 
with  his  large  family,  surrounded  by  a  village  of 
slaves. 

The  house  is  remembered  by  those  who  have  seen 
it,  as  the  usual  plantation  mansion  of  Louisiana,  of 
massive  timber,  with  a  gallery  supported  by  brick 
pillars.  It  was  remarkable  chiefly  for  its  size,  which 
was  that  of  two  ordinary  large  mansions  joined 
together.  An  avenue  of  trees  led  from  the  levee 
to  the  front  portal.  In  this  primitive  sort  of  palace, 
he  had  the  honor  of  receiving  and  entertaining, 
in  1798,  the  Royal  Princes  of  France,  the  Due 
d' Orleans  (later  King  Louis  Philippe)  and  his 
brothers,  the  Due  de  Montpensier  and  the  Comte 
de  Beaujolais,  the  sons  of  Philippe  Egalite. 

The  lavish  luxury  displayed  during  this  entertain- 
ment of  Royalty,  the  splendid  banquets  and  balls 
to  which  all  the  aristocracy  of  New  Orleans  was 
invited,  the  utter  disregard  of  money  expenditure 
(as  it  has  come  down  to  us  in  family  stories)  must 
have  astonished  the  young  Princes,  so  short  of 
money  themselves,  even  more  than  it  did  the  simple- 
minded  citizens  of  that  time. 

The  banquets  offered  by  the  Spanish  Governor  are 
never  mentioned  in  comparison  with  those  of  the 
splendid  Philippe  de  Marigny — not  only  in  New 
Orleans,  but  in  Fontainebleau,  where  he  also  enter- 
tained his  guests.  The  golden  memory  of  them  is 
still  preserved  piously  in  the  little  town  of  Mande- 


■ 


20  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 


ville,  which  naively  claims  for  Fontainebleau  thee: 
original  honor  of  the  fabulous  (it  is  hoped)  story  that$ 
at  a  banquet  given  to  the  Princes,  the  cigar  hghtersij 
passed  around  after  dessert  were  hundred  dollari^ 
bills!  But  the  same  incident,  it  must  be  confessed,  1^ 
is  still  claimed  by  New  Orleans,  where  it  is  recalled  | 
with  a  vividness  that  has  not  been  suffered  tois 
become  dull  during  the  two  centuries  of  brilliant  li' 
functions  that  no  doubt  succeeded  it.* 

The  dainty  Sevres  sugar  bowl,  that  was  passed! 
with  the  black  coffee  on  this  or  a  similar  occasion,  \ 
is  still  preserved  and  shown  by  one  of  the  most* 
charming  descendants  of  the  Marigny  family.  She 
remembers,  as  if  she  had  seen  them  herself  and  not;(^ 
through  the  eyes  of  a  grandmother,  the  captivating! 
manners  of  the  young  Princes  during  their  threeEJi 
months'  visit  to  the  city  and  their  pleasant  socia- 
bility with  the  ladies  of  Society,  whom  they  visited  1' 
in  the  great  lumbering  Marigny  carriage  of  thai 
time,  with  the  nimble  black  footmen  jumping  downf^ 
to  unfold  and  fold  up  the  hanging  steps  when  the/ 
august  young  men  descended  and  ascended. 

But  in  all  that  is  related  about  this  glorious  society  v 
event  of  the  past,  and  of  the  charming  Princes  and! 
beautiful  Creole  ladies,  there  is,  strange  to  say,  no\ 
hint  or  suspicion  of  a  romantic  episode.  For  once: 
poetry  and  romance  abstained  from  intermeddling^ 
in  the  affairs  of  youth,  and  Cupid  stayed  his  handl 
which  is,  let  us  acknowledge  with  all  sincerity,  to} 

*  Bernard  was  once  asked  about  the  truth  of  a  similar  story.  Itf 
was  said  that  a  lady,  having  dropped  a  coin  on  the  floor  at  a  cardJ 
I)arty,  ho  had  lighted  a  five-dollar  bill  as  a  taper  in  looking  for  it.:, 
He  replied:  "I  know  I  have  been  a  fool  about  money;  but  I  waas 
never  fool  enough  to  burn  i'  "'  V 


f 


MARIGNY  DE  MANDEVILLE  21 

the  honor  of  Madame  de  Genlis  and  her  system  of 
education. 

When  the  Princes  took  their  leave,  they  were 
escorted  to  the  Balize  by  numerous  friends  and  by 
their  host,  who  added  to  his  other  royal  generosities 
the  loan  of  a  royal  sum  of  money  (to  which,  it  is 
said,  Enoult  de  Livaudais,  his  son-in-law,  as  gener- 
ously and  imprudently  contributed). 

Pierre  Philippe  de  Marigny,  the  magnificent  and 
courtly  citizen,  died  in  1800,  two  years  later,  at  Fon- 
tainebleau.  His  body  was  transferred  in  state  to 
the  home  of  his  kinswoman,  Madame  Don  Andres 
Almonaster,  whence  it  was  interred  in  the  Cathedral, 
according  to  his  funeral  notices,  tacked,  as  was  the 
custom,  on  the  door  of  the  Cathedral  or  the  corners 
of  the  streets.    One  of  them  has  been  preserved. 

"Messieurs  et  Dames: 
"Vous  ^tes  pri^s  d'assiter  au  convoi  et  k  renterrement  de  feu 
M.  Dn.  Pedro  de  Marigny,  Colonel  de  milice,  d6c6d6'  cet  apr^s 
midi,  h  une  heure,  dans  sa  maison. 

"L'enterrement  se  fera  demain  k  7  heures  du  matin.    Son  corps 
sera  expos6  chez  Madame  Dn.  Andres  Almonaster. 
"Nouvelle  Orleans,  ce  14  Mai  1800. 

"Un  de  Profundis  S.  V.  P." 

His  name  is  the  last  one  recorded  on  the  family 
tombstone  in  the  Cathedral. 
He  left  five  children: 

(1)  Antoine,  born  in  1773. 

(2)  Jean,  born  in  1781,  died  without  issue. 

(3)  Bernard,  born  1785;  his  godparents  were 
the  high  and  mighty  personages,  Xavier 
Delfau  de  Pontalba,  and  F^licit^,  Comtesse 
de  Galvez. 


22  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  \ 

(4)  Marie  Celeste,  baptized  February  2,  1786;  i 
her  godparents  were  Etienne  de  Bor6  andl!^ 
Celeste  Macarty,  wife  of  Governor  Miro.j 
She  married  Jacques  Enoult  de  Livaudais.N 

(5)  Antoine,  born  in  1787;  no  issue.  || 

i! 


I 


CHAPTER  III 
BERNARD  DE  MARIGNY 

IT  was  the  third  child  of  Philippe  Bernard  Xavier 
de  Marigny  de  Mandeville,  who  represented  the 
family  during  the  last  century;  and  who  is  the  hero 
par  excellence  of  New  Orleans^  social  traditions ;  who, 
we  may  say,  was  to  the  Marigny  family  what  the 
final  bouquet  is  to  a  pyrotechnical  display.  He,  more 
than  any  of  his  family  or  men  of  his  time,  is  responsi- 
ble for  what  we  call  to-day  the  Creole  type;  originat- 
ing the  standard  of  fine  living  and  generous  spending, 
of  lordly  pleasure  and  haughty  indifference  to  the 
cost;  the  standard  which  he  maintained  so  bril- 
liantly for  a  half  century,  until,  even  to-day,  one 
receives,  as  an  accepted  fact,  that  not  to  be  fond  of 
good  eating  and  drinking,  of  card  playing  and  pretty 
ladies;  not  to  be  a.  fin  gourmet,  not  to  be  sensitive 
about  honor,  and  to  possess  courage  beyond  all 
need  of  proof  is,  in  sober  truth,  if  such  a  truth  can  be 
called  sober — not  to  be  a  Creole. 

It  was  a  standard  that  required  the  greatest  for- 
tune Louisiana  could  produce  to  maintain  it.  It 
ravaged  the  great  wealth  of  Marigny  himself,  and 
ruined  many  and  many  of  the  old  families  who  tried 
to  follow  in  his  aristocratic  footprints  and  who 
arrived  at  poverty  as  Bernard  did  but  without  the 
prestige  that  distinguished  him  to  the  end.  The 
handsome  furniture,  cut  glass,  porcelain,  jewelry — 
the  real  lace,  and  delicate  bric-a-brac  of  all  kinds 

23 


24  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  ] 

I 

that  have  delighted  the  eye  for  decades  past  in  the*^ 
antique  shops  of  New  Orleans,  are  indubitably  rem-  i 
nants  of  the  wreckage  of  the  fortunes  that  went  to  i 
pieces  in  the  wake  of  the  Marigny  standard  of  living. 
And  as  in  the  course  of  two  centuries  the  Marigny 
family  intermarried  only  with  the  best  families  in  the 
place,  and,  as  we  shall  see,  all  of  the  old  families  , 
bear  one  or  two  of  the  Marigny  names  as  the  proudest 
fruit  of  their  genealogical  trees — the  name  has  come  ) 
to  be  in  the  city's  estimation  as  sure  a  guarantee  i 
of  social  prestige  as  it  is  of  artistic  beauty  and  gen-  ! 
uine  value  when  attached  to  mere  objects  of  domestic  \ 
use.  : 

Elegant  of  manners,  polished  of  tongue,  fearless  ij 
of  opinions,  Bernard  was  the  kind  of  man  that  shone  j» 
in  conversation,  particularly  at  the  banquet  table, 
sowing  repartees  and  witticisms  that  have  sprouted  j 
ever  since  in  the  memory  or  imagination  of  his  fellow 
citizens,  until  they  have  attained  a  growth  and 
luxuriance  of  bloom  out  of  all  proportion  to  our 
powers  of  belief  to-day.  And  it  is  always  repeated 
with  apparent  conviction  that  the  best  and  greatest 
number  have  been  lost — as  seems  always  to  be  the 
fate  of  good  stories.  Those  who  were  born  too  late 
to  know  him  have  always  regretted  the  lost  oppor- 
tunity of  meeting  in  person  a  hero  who  would  have 
graced  the  Court  of  Louis  XIV — or  at  least  the  pages  | 
of  Alexandre  Dumas. 

Upon  Pierre  Philippe's  death,  his  kinsman,  de  5 
Lino  de  Chalmette,  assumed  the  management  of  his 
vast  estates  and  the  guardianship  of  the  fifteen-year- 
old  Bernard.  The  latter  charge  proved  not  a  light 
one  for  the  staid  and  prudent  godfather.  The 
youth,   indulged  and  spoiled,  reared,  according  to 


BERNARD  DE  MARIGNY  25 

local  gossip,  like  some  rich  nobleman^s  son,  had  from 
childhood  known  no  other  authority  but  that  of  his 
own  will  and  pleasure.  Precociously  wild  and 
extravagant,  with  unlimited  wealth  now  at  his  com- 
mand, more  was  feared  than  hoped  from  his  future. 

De  Lino  had  recourse  to  the  time-honored  expe- 
dient, ever  adopted  by  troubled  guardians,  of  a 
change  of  environment.  He  sent  his  ward  to  Pensa- 
cola,  and  placed  him  there  under  the  care  of  the 
great  millionaire  merchant,  Panton,  of  the  historical 
firm  of  Panton  and  Leslie,  whose  commercial  trans- 
actions at  the  time  amounted  to  a  virtual  monopoly 
of  the  Indian  and  European  trade  of  the  southern 
portions  of  America.  The  young  Creole,  however, 
was  given  such  a  handsome  allowance  of  money 
and  liberty  by  his  tutor,  and  he  made  such  good  use 
of  it  for  his  own  pleasure,  that  he  soon  scandalized 
the  austere  Scotchman  and  Protestant,  Panton,  who 
returned  him  after  a  short  experience  to  New 
Orleans. 

But  Chalmette  had  still  another  resource  whereby 
he  hoped  to  make  a  staid  business  man  of  his  charge. 
He  sent  him  to  England,  and  placed  him  under  the 
care  of  Mr.  Leslie,  the  resident  partner  of  the  firm 
in  London.  Two  anxious  letters*  on  the  subject 
by  Chalmette  have  survived  in  a  mass  of  Panton 
family  correspondence. 

He  writes  frankly  to  Mr.  Forbes,  a  member  of  the 
firm,  who  apparently  had  intervened  in  the  affair: 

"The  friends  who  have  informed  you  unfavorably  about  the 
young  man,  have  not  misled  you.  He  has  been  guilty  of  irregu- 
larities of  conduct,  errors  caused  rather  by  his  youth  than  by 

*  Obtained  through  the  courtesy  of  H^loise  Crozet,  a  descendant 
of  Mr.  Panton. 


26  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  f  j 

corruption  of  heart.  Besides,  at  the  time  he  was  under  the  guidance  ' 
of  a  most  respectable  father,  but  one  full  of  weak  indulgence  toward 
him  which  contributed  not  a  little  to  his  ill  conduct.  I  have  made  | 
him  understand  your  fears  about  introducing  him.  He  feels  them  J 
sensibly.  But  his  expressions  and  his  increase  in  age,  his  promises  ij 
to  me,  and  his  good  conduct  since  the  death  of  his  father,  are  strong  :, 
reasons  for  me  to  hope  that  he  will  become  one  day,  an  agreeable  j 
and  intelUgent  member  of  society."  i 

i 

Some  days  later  he  writes:  ■ 

"1  am  writing  to  Mr.  LesUe  acquainting  him  with  the  character  j 
of  the  young  man.  I  am  giving  him  full  power  to  place  him  in  the  ' 
college  or  seminary  he  selects  as  the  most  proper.  I  also  leave  to  ! 
his  will  all  that  pertains  to  his  clothing  and  small  expenses.  In  fact,  ' 
I  make  over  to  him  all  the  authority  I  have  as  his  tutor,  approving  , 
in  advance  whatever  measures  he  may  adopt  in  regard  to  him.  I 
tell  Mr.  Leslie  also,  that  if  the  1200  gourdes  (dollars)  that  I  have  | 
settled  as  Bernard's  pension  for  the  first  year,  do  not  suffice,  I  pray  , 
him  to  supply  the  deficit,  and  so  to  advise  me  that  I  may  return 
his  advances." 

He  explains: 

"According  to  what  information  I  have  been  able  to  gather  from 
different  persons  here  as  to  the  expenditures  necessary  to  obtain  a 
good  education,  lodging,  food  and  small  pleasures  for  a  young  man 
in  Louisiana  or  London,  I  am  assured  that  twelve  hundred  dollars  ■ 
will  suffice  to  procure  comfortable  ease.  He  must  keep  within  it 
the  first  year  at  least  .  .  .  Bernard  knows  all  this  and  seems 
disposed  to  fulfil  my  desires. 

"Db  Lino,  April  29th,  1808." 

Later  he  thought  of  increasing  the  allowance 
to  two  thousand  dollars,  whenever  Mr.  Leslie  assured 
him  that  the  young  man  was  making  good  use  of  the 
money,  for  it  would  be  dangerous  for  him  to  pos- 
sess large  means  in  a  city  which  offered  so  much 
temptation  as  London. 

Introduced  into  the  best  society  by  Mr.  Leslie, 


BERNARD  DE  MARIGNY  27 

who  himself  was  connected  with  old  and  aristocratic 
families  of  Scotland  and  England,  even  with  the 
Gordons  then  shining  in  the  luster  of  their  luminary, 
Lord  Byron,  Bernard  de  Marigny  gained  in  London 
much  in  the  way  of  the  English  polish  of  manners 
of  the  time.  He  gained  also  the  fine  fluent  use  of 
good  English  that  distinguished  him  through  life, 
although  his  accent  remained  amusingly  bad.  (In 
social  life  and  with  his  family,  he  spoke  only  French.) 
Of  business  methods,  however,  he  learned  naught 
that  was  profitable.  In  short,  he  made  so  many  visits 
to  Paris,  spent  money  so  lavishly  on  his  pleasures, 
and  his  pleasures  increased  so  alarmingly  in  moral 
and  financial  cost,  that  his  alarmed  tutor  recalled 
him  in  1803  to  the  bosom  of  his  family. 

His  portrait  at  this  time  represents  him  with 
the  clean-shaven,  handsome  face  of  the  full-blooded 
young  EngHshman  of  the  day,  dressed  with  the  fop- 
pery of  a  dashing  young  fellow;  his  eyes,  large  and 
handsome,  bespeaking  intellect;  his  handsome  mouth 
and  full  lips  showing  the  devotion  to  the  good  things 
of  life  which  he  always  professed,  to  which  indeed 
he  showed  a  lifelong  fidelity.  His  figure  was  sym- 
metry itself;  he  was  about  five  feet  ten  inches  tall 
and  admirably  proportioned. 

Gayarr^,  his  cousin,  gives  this  glimpse  of  him: 

"One  day  as  our  family,  seated  on  the  front  piazza,  was  enjoying 
the  balmy  atmosphere  of  a  bright  May  morning,  there  came  on  a 
visit  from  New  Orleans,  M.  de  Bora's  favorite  nephew,  whose  name 
was  Bernard  de  Marigny.  He  was  one  of  the  most  briUiant  and 
wealthiest  young  men  of  the  epoch.  He  drove  in  a  dashing  way  up 
to  the  house  in  an  elegant  equipage  drawn  by  two  fiery  horses. 
Full  of  the  buoyancy  of  youth,  he  jumped  out  of  his  carriage  and 
ran  up  the  broad  steps  of  the  brick  perron  that  ascended  to  the 


28  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

piazza.    As  he  reached  the  top  of  it,  he  said,  with  a  sort  of  famiUarity, 
"Bonjour,  mon  oncle,  bonjour!" 

Marigny  was  at  this  time  eighteen,  and  master  of 
himself  and  of  his  fortune.  A  most  favorable  occa- 
sion for  the  employment  of  both  was  at  hand. 
Louisiana  was  to  be  transferred  back  to  France. 
M.  de  Laussat  was  sent  to  New  Orleans,  with  the 
title  of  Colonial  Prefect,  to  represent  France  and 
receive  the  province  from  the  Spanish  Commis- 
sioners. He  brought  a  letter  of  introduction  to 
Bernard  Marigny  from  Delfau  de  Pontalba,  who 
suggested  to  his  young  kinsman  to  tender  the  use 
of  his  house  to  the  French  Commissioner.  This 
advice  was  at  once  acted  on ;  and  de  Laussat,  his  wife 
— ''a  woman  of  remarkable  beauty  and  wit,'^  as 
Marigny  describes  her,  two  young  daughters,  his 
staff  of  four  officers  and  his  secretary  were  all  enter- 
tained in  this  great  house  on  the  levee,  in  which 
Philippe  de  Marigny  had  entertained  the  Royal 
Princes. 

Bernard  proved  the  equal  of  his  father  in  bounte- 
ous hospitaUty,  and  surpassed  him  in  the  brilliancy 
of  the  fetes  given  in  honor  of  his  guests.  He  him- 
self was  tendered  a  seat  at  Laussat's  table  as  well 
as  entree  to  his  salon,  and  he  became  one  of  the 
intimates  of  the  circle. 

He  participated  in  Laussat's  anxiety  over  the  delay 
of  General  Victor's  arrival  with  the  army  to  take 
military  possession  for  France,  and  was  a  witness  of 
his  extreme  disappointment  when  he  received  the 
order  to  cede  the  province  with  as  brief  delay  as 
possible  to  the  Commissioners  of  the  United  States. 
The  courier  who  brought  the  dispatch  was  a  dashing 
young  French  officer  named  Landais  who,  charged 
to   avoid   the   usual   route   and   conveyance   from 


BERNARD  DE  MARIGNY  29 

Washington,  rode  at  full  speed  through  the  Indian 
territory  to  New  Orleans. 

Preparations  were  at  once  begun  for  the  ceremony 
of  the  cession  and  the  fetes  and  entertainments  to 
celebrate  the  event  were  renewed  and  prolonged. 
Salcedo,  the  Spanish  Governor,  who  was  old  and 
infirm,  wished  to  defer  the  ceremony  until  he  had 
heard  from  his  government,  but  Casacalvo,  the 
Commissioner  sent  by  Spain  to  assist  him,  '^a  man 
of  no  ability,'^  says  Marigny,  was  anxious  to  return 
to  his  family  and  interests  in  Cuba,  and  hastened  the 
preparations. 

At  both  ceremonies  of  cession,  Marigny,  at  Laus- 
sat's  request,  acted  as  his  aide-de-camp;  but  ar- 
dently American  in  sympathy,  as  soon  as  Louisiana 
was  given  over  to  Claiborne,  he  volunteered  on  the 
staff  of  General  Wilkinson.  He  remained  in  active 
service  until  1808  when,  on  account  of  the  fatal  ill- 
ness of  his  wife,  he  sent  in  his  resignation.  Her 
death,  he  says,  ^'closing  the  political  career  that 
might  have  been  his.''  Nevertheless,  with  confident 
intrepidity,  he  afterward  entered  into  poHtics, 
embracing  the  principles  of  the  Democratic  Party, 
of  which  he  remained  a  faithful  partisan  through 
life.  At  the  time  of  his  death,  it  was  said  that  for 
fifty  years  no  Democratic  mass  meeting  was  held  to 
be  complete  that  was  not  presided  over  by  Bernard 
Marigny.  In  1804  he  married  Mary  Ann  Jones, 
daughter  of  Evan  Jones,  a  wealthy  Pennsylvanian, 
for  a  time  American  Consul  in  New  Orleans,  and  of 
Marie  Verret,  of  a  fine  old  Creole  family. 

Mary  Ann  Jones  died  in  Philadelphia,  June  4th, 
1808;  her  body  was  transferred  to  New  Orleans, 
August  4th,  1808.  She  was  interred  in  a  new 
sepulchre,  built  by  her  husband,  in  a  corner  of  the 


80  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

garden  on  his  plantation,  the  lot  and  tomb  having 
been  previously  blessed  by  the  reverend  Father 
Antonio  de  Sedella. 

By  this  union  were  born  two  children: 

Gustave  Adolphe,  born  in  1808,  was  killed  in  a 

duel  and  left  no  issue. 
Prosper  Frangois  de  Marigny,  who  died  in 
Natchez  in  1836.  He  married  his  cousin, 
Marie  Celeste  d'Estrehan.  (His  widow  re- 
married Mr.  Alexander  Grailhe,  a  barrister.) 
They  left  two  children : 

Gustave    Philippe,    who    married    Elmina 
Bienvenu;    and    Marie    Odile,    married 
Alphonse  Miltenberger. 
About  1809  or  1810,  he  remarried  Anne  Mathilde 
Morales,  daughter  of  Don  Ventura  Morales,  former 
Spanish  Intendant  and  Royal  Contador,  unenviably 
known  to  history  for  his  intrigues  against  the  Ameri- 
can Domination,  until  Governor  Claiborne  forced  his 
retirement  from  the  city  and  States. 

His  courtship  of  Anna  Mathilde  Morales  is 
thus  related  by  one  who  heard  the  original  account 
of  it: 

Arriving  in  Pensacola,  Marigny  went  to  a  ball  where  his  atten- 
tion was  soon  attracted  to  the  most  beautiful  woman  in  it.  He 
expressed  his  admiration  and  asked  her  name.  His  informant 
thought  proper  to  warn  him:  "You  will  meet  trouble."  "That's 
what  I  like!"  answered  Marigny  lightly,  and  at  once  engaged  the 
young  lady  to  dance,  and  made  himself  agreeable  to  her  the  rest  of 
the  evening,  to  the  exclusion  of  her  other  admirers. 

The  next  morning  he  received  seven  challenges,  "I  cannot  fight 
all  at  once,"  he  answered,  "but  I  will  meet  one  every  morning  before 
breakfast,  until  all  are  satisfied."  His  first  opponent  fell  with  a  sword 
thrust  through  the  body.  The  other  six  professed  themselves 
eatisficd  and  made  their  apologies:  "We  see  that  you  are  a  man  of 
courago  and  honor."  Marigny  obtained  without  further  opposition 
the  hand  of  the  beautiful  young  lady. 


BERNARD  DE  MARIGNY  31 

Morales  was  reputed  to  have  hogsheads  filled  with 
gold  in  his  house ;  the  hogsheads,  as  described,  were 
found  in  his  house — but  they  were  not  filled  with 
gold! 

In  1810  Marigny  was  elected  to  the  Legislature.  In 
1812  he  was  elected  a  member  of  the  first  Constitu- 
tional Convention  of  Louisiana  and,  although  the 
youngest  of  its  members,  he  took  no  small  part  in 
framing  the  Constitution  that  ruled  Louisiana  for 
thirty-three  years.  He  always  fought  frankly  and 
squarely  on  the  side  of  the  Louisianians  and  against 
the  increasingly  aggressive  partisanship  of  the 
Americans. 

In  this  first  Convention  took  place  the  historic 
effort  by  the  Americans  to  change  the  name  of  the 
State  to  Jefferson.  It  was  a  proposition  warranted 
to  inflame  the  Creoles  to  the  point  of  frenzy,  and  it 
did  so.  Marigny  relates  that  one  of  the  members, 
Louis  de  Blanc  de  St.  Denis,  declared  that  ''if  such 
a  proposition  had  any  chance  of  success,  he  would 
arm  himself  with  a  barrel  of  powder  and  blow  up 
the  Convention!'' 

In  1811,  at  what  is  still  considered  the  most 
important  marriage  ceremony  that  ever  took  place 
in  the  city,  when  the  Baron  de  Pontalba  (the  son  of 
Marigny's  godfather)  was  married  to  Micaela 
Almonaster,  daughter  of  the  Spanish  Alfarez  Real, 
the  historic  benefactor-of  New  Orleans,  Marigny,  act- 
ing as  the  representative  of  Marshal  Ney,  the  disting- 
uished friend  of  the  Pontalbas,  gave  the  bride  away. 

A  few  years  later  de  Pontalba  proposed  a  more 
personal  connection  between  his  friend  and  the 
great  Marshal.  Among  the  papers  found  on  Ney 
at  the  time  of  his  arrest,  was  the  following  letter 
written  by  de  Pontalba  to  Marigny: 


32  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

"Paris,  11th  July,  1815. 

"You  know,  my  dear  Cousin,  the  attachment  that  my  son  and 
I  have  felt  for  a  long  time  for  M.  Mar^chal  Ney,  Prince  de  la  Moscou. 
Circumstances  are  sending  him  to  New  Orleans.  He  has  chosen  that 
part  of  the  world  from  what  I  have  told  him  of  the  liberty  that  one 
enjoys  there  and  of  the  kindly  and  hospitable  character  of  its 
inhabitants. 

"Among  them  I  have  distinguished  you,  my  friend,  and  it  is  to 
you  that  I  am  sending  him,  being  confident  that  you  will  render 
him  all  the  services  in  your  power.  See  about  an  establishment  for 
him  according  to  the  desires  that  he  will  communicate  to  you.  Be 
assured  that  I  will  be  much  more  grateful  to  you  for  anything  you 
can  do  for  him  than  if  you  did  it  for  myself.  You  will  be  the  first 
person  he  will  see  on  arriving.  I  have  insisted  he  shall  land  at 
your  home,  because  I  know  he  will  find  there  a  good  welcome  and 
full  liberty, 

"When  you  know  him  you  will  see  that  he  is  the  most  modest 
and  simple  of  men.  If  he  sees  that  his  presence  is  causing  you  any 
embarrassment  or  expense  on  his  account,  he  will  leave  you  to  go 
to  a  tavern.  Receive  him  then  with  the  greatest  simplicity;  act 
as  if  he  were  not  in  your  home.  He  will  arrive  in  the  sickly  time 
in  the  city.  I  wish  that  you  would  obtain  his  consent  to  pass  this 
time  in  the  country.  I  am  very  certain  that  you  will  make  the 
strongest  insistence  upon  this,  but  I  am  afraid  he  will  resist,  if 
in  a  few  days  he  sees  that  his  presence  is  leading  you  into  extra- 
ordinary expenses,  as  happened  when  upon  my  recommendation 
you  received  M.  de  Laussat  so  splendidly. 

"In  the  meantime,  my  friend,  and  after  he  has  become  acquainted 
with  the  place,  you  will  see  about  procuring  for  him  a  house,  in  the 
country  near  the  city;  I  need  not  tell  you  how  to  go  about  this. 
I  know  you  well  and  am  very  certain  you  will  know  how  to  meet 
all  his  desires.  St.  Avid  will  second  you  with  all  his  power.  You 
will  not  have  forgotten  that  it  was  you  who  were  charged  by 
M.  le  Mar6chal  to  represent  him  on  the  occasion  of  the  marriage 
of  my  son    .    .    ." 

"PONTALBA." 

Archives  Nationales. 

Procedure  de  M.  le  Marichal  Ney. 

de  la  premiere  Div.  Militre 


BERNARD  DE  MARIGNY  33 

In  another  letter  to  his  nephew  St.  Avid,  Pontalba 
writes : 

"I  pray  you  my  dear  nephew  to  join  Marigny  in  rendering  to 
Mar^chal  Ney,  Prince  do  la  Moscou,  all  the  services  that  you  can." 

Five  months  after  these  letters  were  written  the 
Marshal  was  executed. 

At  this  time,  1814-1815,  Marigny  was  acting  as 
Chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Defense,  charged  by 
the  Legislature  to  place  the  entire  resources  of  the 
State  at  the  disposition  of  General  Jackson.  He 
was  one  of  the  party  of  distinguished  citizens  who 
assembled  to  meet  and  welcome  the  General  at 
his  landing  place  on  the  Bayou  St.  Jean.  Marigny 
thought  that  he  should  have  had  the  honor  of  enter- 
taining the  great  soldier  during  his  stay  in  New 
Orleans. 

"My  name,"  he  writes  rather  bitteriy,  "was  not  unknown  to 
him;  he  had  very  recently  been  the  guest  of  my  father-in-law, 
M.  Morales  (in  Pensacola),  who  made  known  to  me  the  desire  of 
the  General  to  stay  with  me,  and  it  would  have  been  infinitely 
agreeable  to  receive  him.     ,     .     ." 

But  a  more  pushing  aspirant  usurped  what  it 
almost  seems  was  the  right  of  a  Marigny.  Jackson 
arrived  at  Bayou  St.  Jean  and  the  Mayor  made  his 
speech  of  welcome.  It  is  worth  while  repeating 
what  Marigny  writes  further  about  the  reception: 

"The  rain  was  pouring  down;  all  present  were  wet,  muddy  and 
uncomfortable ;  but  the  Mayor  (given  to  singing  madrigals  to  persons 
in  power)  assured  the  General  that  the  sun  is  never  shining  more 
briUiantly  than  when  you  are  among  us!" 

At  the  Battle  of  New  Orleans,  Marigny  distin- 
guished himself  by  his  courage  and  activity.  It  is 
noteworthy  that  the  glorious  victory  was  reaped 


34  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

on  the  fields  of  the  plantation  of  his  Uncle  de  Lino  de 
Chalmette.*  In  1824  he  supported  General  Jackson 
for  President  not  only  with  his  usual  fiery  eloquence, 
but  also,  perhaps  more  effectively,  with  force  of  arms. 
He  was  an  ardent  dueUst  and  an  expert  with  sword 
and  pistol,  and  he  has  been  credited  with  fifteen  or 
more  encounters. 

His  two  duels  in  later  years  with  Mr.  Grailhe,  the 
distinguished  barrister,  live  with  amusing  distinct- 
ness in  the  memory  of  old  friends  of  Marigny  to-day. 
Grailhe  married  the  widow  of  Marigny's  son  and 
made  too  free  with  her  property.  Bernard,  the  ever 
ready  champion  of  the  ladies,  challenged  him,  and  in 
the  duel  that  followed  shot  or  thrust  Grailhe  through 
the  body,  giving  him  a  wound  that  resulted  in  a 
bend  forward  which  made  him  walk,  in  local  par- 
lance, ''doubled  up."  At  his  second  duel  with 
Grailhe,  provoked  by  the  same  cause,  Bernard  told 
his  seconds  nonchalantly:  'This  time  I  shall  try  to 
straighten  him."  He  shot  or  thrust  him,  in  truth, 
in  exactly  the  same  place  as  before;  and  Grailhe 
did  lose  his  bend  forward,  but  gained  a  bend 
backward  that  made  him  even  more  conspicuous 
than  before! 

In  1825,  when  General  Lafayette  came  to  the 
United  States  and  accepted  the  invitation  of  the 
people  of  Louisiana  to  visit  their  State,  Marigny  was 
selected  to  make  the  speech  of  welcome  in  French, 
and  his  family  was  the  only  private  one  that  was 

*Bernard  Marigny 's  "Reflexions  sur  la  Campagne  du  G6n6ral 
Andr6  Jackson  en  Louisiane,"  New  Orleans,  1848,  is  the  best 
account  we  have  of  the  preparations  made  to  meet  the  enemy 
before  the  battle;  and  of  the  ensuing  episode. — Library  of  Louisiana 
Historical  Society. 


BERNARD  DE  MARIGNY  35 

visited  by  the  General  during  the  visit.  Marigny 
says  that  he  knew  Lafayette  well  in  France  in  1822- 
1823,  and  that  the  General  thanked  him  for  having 
suggested  that  he  visit  the  United  States. 

In  1827,  when  General  Jackson  paid  his  memorable 
social  visit  to  New  Orleans,  accompanied  by  Mrs. 
Jackson,  General  Carroll  and  his  wife,  and  General 
Houston,  they  all  stayed  with  Bernard  Marigny, 
who,  as  he  says  ^'was  able  to  give  them  some  pretty 
entertainments.'' 

His  second  marriage  not  proving  a  happy  one, 
he  passed  more  and  more  of  his  time  at  his  father's 
old  summer  home  of  Fontainebleau,  on  the  northern 
shore  of  Lake  Pontchartrain,  not  for  the  sake  of 
the  seclusion  and  quiet  it  offered  after  the  excite- 
ment of  American  politics  and  financial  specula- 
tions, but  for  the  greater  Hberty  it  granted  for  the 
enjoyment  of  his  favorite  pleasures — the  table  and 
convivial  intercourses  with  friends.  Here  it  is  that 
his  standards  of  both  enjoyments  attained  a  height 
of  perfection  that  has  resulted  in  his  gastronomic 
apotheosis  in  Louisiana's  traditions  and  romance. 

A  more  favorable  spot  for  the  pleasing  of  an 
epicure  can  hardly  be  imagined;  a  beautiful  lake  ever 
rippling  under  gentle  breezes,  or  scintillating  at  the 
hour  of  dinner  with  the  glitter  of  the  setting  sun;  a 
white  beach  shaded  by  magnificent  oaks,  draped 
with  hangings  of  moss;  luxuriant  flowers  disposed 
like  jewels  on  the  green  sward;  hedges  of  Cherokee 
roses;  vines  of  wild  honeysuckle;  the  illimitable  pine 
forest  behind,  fragrant  and  balmy,  traversed  by  slow- 
meandering  bayous;  the  forests  teeming  with  game, 
the  bayous  and  lake  with  fish.  For  service  he  had  a 
retinue  of  accomplished,  devoted  slaves  and  a  luxu- 


36  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  \ 

nous  city  was  within  easy  reach  to  draw  upon  for  J 
wine.     What  could  a  crowned  head  ask  for  more?     i 

He  entertained  at  Fontainebleau  with  the  exquisite  j 
generosity  all  his  own,  that  allows  no  self-question-' 
ings  save  such  as  concern  the  comfort  and  pleasure  i 
of  the  guests.  A  paradise  for  an  epicure  and  fori 
Bernard  de  Marigny!  It  is  not  surprising  that ' 
pleasure-loving  friends  from  New  Orleans  flocked  ; 
to  Fontainebleau  as  pilgrims  to  a  shrine;  and  withi 
more  confident  assurance  of  the  results  than  pious  ; 
pilgrims  ever  enjoy.  i 

There  they  found  grassees  that  fed  on  magnolia ! 
berries;  turkeys  fattened  on  pecans;  papabotse 
and  snipe  kept  until  they  ripened  and  fell  from  their  i 
hangings;  terrapin  from  his  own  pens;  soft-shellli 
crabs  from  the  beach;  oysters  fresh  from  his  owm, 
reefs;  green  trout  and  perch  from  the  bayous;  sheep-  | 
heads  and  croakers  from  the  lake;  pompano,  red  ; 
fish,  snappers  from  the  Gulf;  vegetables  from  his  owti  j 
garden;  cress  from  his  own  sparkling  forest  spring; ;i 
fruit  from  his  orchard;  eggs,  chickens,  capons  from., 
his  own  fowl  yard.  These,  with  sherry,  madeira,  i 
champagne,  and  liqueurs,  were  the  crude  elements  s' 
of  repasts  that  he  combined  into  m^nus  that  Brillat  •[ 
Savarin  would  have  been  glad  to  have  composed. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  little  town  of  Mande- 
ville  is  as  redolent  of  good  cooking  as  some  other', 
little  towns  elsewhere  are  of  religion  and  piety,  for  ! 
Fontainebleau  had  begotten  the  most  beautiful,  most 
charming,  picturesque  little  lake  shore  town  without 
doubt  in  the  United  States.  The  weary  citizen  of 
New  Orleans  can  still  find  there  seclusion,  cool 
breezes,  green  shade  of  century-old  oaks  draped 
with  moss,  a  lovely  view,  and  liberty  of  enjoyment, 


BERNARD  DE  MARIGNY  37 

in  the  good  cooking  as  not  the  least  of  its  attrac- 
tions. 

The  boon  of  this  unique  and  precious  little  town, 
the  State,  or  rather  the  city,  owes  to  Bernard  de 
Marigny. 

He  it  was  who,  during  the  early  years  of  the  cen- 
tury, conceived  the  idea  of  purchasing  land  along 
the  lake  shore  and  forest  adjoining  Fontainebleau 
until  sufficient  had  been  acquired  for  his  purpose. 
He  was  inspired  to  make  a  town  as  poets  are  inspired 
to  make  a  poem.  He  gave  himself  over,  as  a  poet 
should,  to  his  muse,  and  she,  as  a  muse  should,  con- 
fided herself  to  him.  Nature  and  art  lent  themselves 
kindly  to  the  enterprise.  Streets  were  made,  trees 
were  planted,  lots  were  placed  on  sale,  with  an  eye 
fixed  rather  to  avoid  undesirable  additions  to  the 
community,  than  to  secure  financial  profits.  Public 
buildings  were  provided  for,  bridges  built,  a  church 
and  a  market  hall  duly  erected.  Above  all,  a  town 
government  was  instituted  that  eliminated,  as 
far  as  mere  human  supervision  could,  the  corrupting 
influence  of  American  elections.  In  short,  such  as 
the  little  French  town  is  to-day  refined,  elegant,  yet 
simple — it  left  Bernard  de  Marigny's  hand  in  1830. 

His  congenial  friend  John  Davis,  an  Emigre  from 
St.  Domingo,  and  known  to  all  as  the  famous  impre- 
sario of  what  is  always  called  the  ^'celebrated  Orleans 
Theatre,''  was  associated  wdth  him  in  the  Mande- 
ville  enterprise  which  included  the  employment  of  a 
steamboat  to  make  the  daily  trip  from  New  Orleans 
to  Mandeville.  Davis  is  also  thanked  (at  Mande- 
ville)  for  bringing  thither  the  renowned  cook,  Louis 
Boudro,  from  Paris  (with  the  other  artists,  lyric  and 
dramatic,   engaged   for  his   theatre).     Other  cele- 


38  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

brated  chefs  followed  Boudro  in  the  course  of  years 
and  by  way  of  insuring  the  perpetuity  of  the  town's 
culinary  celebrity,  they  became  in  time  the  hotel 
keepers  of  Mandeville. 

Marigny's  continual  financial  extravagance,  how- 
ever, and  the  depreciation  of  his  city  property, 
produced  their  inevitable  results.  The  clouds  that 
later  darkened  his  life  began  to  gather,  but  it  is  to 
this  period  of  his  life  that  belongs  the  most  famous  ; 
adventure  in  it — the  one  that  is  always  remembered 
first  in  New  Orleans  when  his  name  is  mentioned. 

In  1830,  when  his  own  fortunes  were  ebbing,  those 
of  his  father's  old  guest  and  friend,  the  Duke  of 
Orleans,  reached  their  flux  with  his  ascension  to  the 
throne  of  France  as  King  Louis  Philippe  I.  He 
promptly  showed  his  recollection  of  past  favors  by 
sending  to  his  New  Orleans  friend ;  de  Marigny,  with 
whom  he  had  kept  up  a  faithful  correspondence,  the 
conventional  French  royal  token  of  appreciation — 
a  beautiful  dinner  service  of  silver,  each  article  bear- 
ing a  portrait  of  the  royal  family.  In  a  cordial  letter 
(which  is  still  in  existence)  the  King  invited  Bernard 
to  pay  him  a  visit.  This  was  not  to  be  declined  and 
Marigny,  with  his  young  son,  called  ''Mandeville,'' 
went  forthwith  to  Paris  and  to  the  Tuilleries.  They 
were  received  in  the  palace  with  open  arms  according 
to  their  highest  expectations.  They  were  presented 
to  the  Royal  family  and  given  seats  at  the  family 
table.  In  fact,  the  Creole  hospitality  of  yore  was 
returned  with  Creole  cordiality.  Bernard,  after  six 
months  of  the  King's  hospitality  and  Court  life, 
made  his  reappearance  in  New  Orleans,  perhaps  with 
the  satirical  smile  that  usually  accompanies  the 
narrative  as  told  by  his  friends.     The  King  had 


BERNARD  DE  MARIGNY  39 

returned  to  the  son  every  obligation  he  owed  to 
Philippe  de  Marigny,  save  the  one  debt  of  honor — 
the  princely  sum  of  money  that  had  been  loaned  to 
him! 

But  with  paternal  friendship,  he  offered  to  pro- 
vide for  the  future  of  young  Mandeville  by  placing 
him,  for  military  education,  in  the  Academy  of  St. 
Cyr,  which  assured  him  an  officer's  rank  in  the 
French  Army.  The  offer  was  c-ccepted.  Mandeville 
was  sent  to  the  Academy  and  in  a  few  years  gained 
his  rank  as  lieutenant  in  a  cavalry  corps  of  the  61ite. 
All  should  have  gone  well  with  him  but,  according 
to  the  chronicler,*  who  seems  to  speak  from  personal 
knowledge,  the  young  Creole,  accustomed  to  the 
activity  and  rough  exercises  of  hunting  and  fishing  in 
Louisiana,  soon  tired  of  the  monotonous  military  life 
in  France  during  a  peace,  ruffled  only  by  an  acri- 
monious feeling  against  the  American  Republic 
which  expressed  itself  in  uncomplimentary  remarks 
in  public  places.  He  became  involved  in  a  duel  on 
this  account,  which  necessitated  his  retirement  from 
the  army  and  his  return  to  his  own  country  where  he 
was  received  with  acclamation  as  a  hero.  With  the 
exception  of  his  father  he  was  the  handsomest  man 
in  the  city;  the  most  gallant  ^'beau"  in  society.  A 
perfect  cavalier,  he  had  brought  with  him  from 
France  the  beautiful  charger  presented  to  him  by  the 
King,  upon  which  he  was  fond  of  displaying  himself. 
His  father,  who  prided  himself  also  on  his  horseman- 
ship, was  wont  to  look  upon  his  son's  equestrian 
feats  with  a  cold  eye.  One  day,  after  a  brilliant 
exhibition  by  Mandeville,  Bernard  remarked  coldly 
that  he  could  do  the  same. 

*  Castellano's  "New  Orleans  As  It  Was." 


40  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Mandeville  instantly  dismounted  and,  with  a  low 
bow,  handed  the  reins  to  his  father  with  a  courtly 
''Montez,  mon  pere.''     No  sooner  said  than  done. 

But  Bernard  had  not  seated  himself  in  the  saddle 
before  the  horse  promptly  threw  him  to  the  ground. 

Bernard  never  forgave  his  son  the  ''trick/'  as  he 
considered  it. 

Mandeville  married  Sophronia,  daughter  of  Gover- 
nor Claiborne.  He  entered  the  Confederate  Army 
as  Colonel  of  the  Tenth  Louisiana  Volunteers  and 
served  in  Virginia.  The  Confederate  Government, 
however,  recognizing  his  high  military  fitness, 
assigned  him  South  to  organize  a  force  of  cavalry. 

He  survived  his  father  and,  through  a  long  life  of 
poverty,  maintained  an  unimpeachable  reputation 
as  a  man  of  courage  and  honor. 

This  adventure  or  experiment  over,  Marigny 
fared  on  through  middle  age,  as  he  had  through 
youth,  shrugging  his  shoulders  at  ill  fortune  and  not 
troubling  his  digestion  about  what  might  betide 
him  or  those  who  came  after  him.  His  separation 
from  his  wife  became  permanent;  his  daughters 
married ;  his  sons,  smaller  than  he, went  their  smaller 
way. 

Marigny  was  re-elected  to  the  House  or  Senate 
successively  until  1838.  The  truth  of  what  he  said 
of  himself  in  a  political  pamphlet,  printed  in  Paris 
as  early  as  1822,  has  never  been  contested,  and  is 
borne  out  by  the  rest  of  his  political  career: 

"Ten  years  of  my  life  have  been  sacrificed  to  public  affairs;  and 
no  one  doubts  that  this  has  cost  me  considerable  expenditures. 
These  expenditures  I  have  borne,  for  I  have  never  solicited  or 
obtained  a  lucrative  office.  I  have  contributed  my  efforts  that  my 
compatriots  should  not  be  entirely  dispossessed  of  their  language, 


BERNARD  DE  MARIGNY  43 

their  customs,  their  laws.  I  possessed  an  immense  fortune,  whereas 
now  it  barely  amounts  to  the  value  of  one  of  the  four  inheritances 
that  I  successively  received;  and  I  think  I  may  claim  that  the  use 
I  made  of  them  has  always  been  honorable,  by  my  household 
standards  as  well  as  by  the  assistance  I  have  been  able  to  give 
to  the  needy;  to  the  poor  mother  of  an  indigent  family,  and  to 
unfortunate  strangers.  Have  they  not  always  found  me  willing 
to  tender  a  helping  hand?"* 

The  allusion  to  his  waning  fortune  is  to  be  ex- 
plained by  other  reasons  than  those  mentioned. 
The  natural  antagonism  between  the  American  and 
Louisianian  citizens  of  New  Orleans  developed  into 
the  fierce  rivalry  of  business  competition  between 
the  American  quarter  (the  Faubourg  St.  Mary)  and 
the  Creole  quarter  (the  Faubourg  Marigny) ;  between 
the  ''uptown"  and  the  ''downtown"  ideal  of  pro- 
gressiveness.  It  was  a  purely  financial  struggle. 
Marigny,  as  the  most  prominent  among  the  Creoles 
and  the  largest  landowner  in  the  city,  was  the  natural 
leader  of  the  Creoles;  but  he  and  they,  with  their 
antiquated  principles,  were  as  children  before  the 
keen-witted  Americans — trained  to  perfection  in 
the  skilled  manipulation  of  municipal  patronage  for 
private  profit. 

In  the  fight  New  Orleans  was  rent  into  three  dis- 
tinct parts  or  municipalities,  each  one  with  its  own 
Board  of  Aldermen,  but  all  imder  one  Mayor  and 
Council.  Marigny  protested  with  might  and  main 
against  this  rendition  of  Solomon's  judgment.  What 
he  foresaw,  happened;  the  Faubourg  St.  Mary  be- 
came, as  he  called  it,  "the  spoiled  child  of  the  Mayor 
and  Council,  the  object  of  their  tender  affection," 

*This  statement  is  borne  out  in  every  particular  by  Bernard 
Marigny's  constituents.  He  was,  according  to  their  belief,  the 
most  generous  and  charitable,  as  well  as  honorable  of  men. 


44  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

and  grew  with  amazing  rapidity  into  the  beauty  and 
prosperity  of  an  enterprising  American  city,  pulsing 
with  Western  blood  and  energy;  while  the  Faubourg 
Marigny,  motionless  and  inert,  still  lay,  like  a  sleepy 
bayou,  on  its  own  outskirts. 

The  motive  power  of  the  development  in  the 
American  quarter  was  supplied  by  the  genius  of  two 
men,  great  in  the  history  of  New  Orleans :  an  Ameri- 
can, Samuel  Jarvis  Peters,  and  an  Englishman, 
James  H.  Caldwell.  They  introduced  gas  and  water- 
works, paved  the  streets  and  built  hotels  in  the 
American  city,  and  improved  its  quays  along  which 
the  flatboats  from  the  West,  gorged  with  produce, 
tied  up  three  deep  to  unload  their  rich  cargoes  into 
vast  warehouses.* 

We  are  told  by  an  American  narrator  that  Peters, 
who  lived  in  the  vieux  carr6  with  his  auxiliary  and 
co-worker,  Caldwell,  had  originally  selected  the 
Creole  Faubourg  as  the  field  for  their  civic  improve- 
ments, but  it  happened  that  the  old  Faubourg  was 
virtually  owned  by  that  proud  Creole  princehng, 
Bernard  de  Marigny.  Being  informed  of  the  plans 
to  beautify  his  domains  by  the  building  of  a  first- 
class  hotel,  a  large  theatre  and  the  laying  out  of 
handsome  paved  streets  as  well  as  warehouses, 
cotton-presses,  gas  and  waterwork  plants,  etc., 
to  make  it  a  commercial  and  social  center.  Mon- 
sieur de  Marigny  finally  consented  to  dispose  of 
his  vast  estates  for  a  fabulous  price.  The  act 
of  sale  was  finally  drawn  up,  but  when  purchasers 
and  vendor  met  on  the  appointed  day  in  the  notary^s 

*  "Autobiography  of  Samuel  Jarvis  Peters,  by  George  C.  H. 
Kemion."  Publications  of  Louisiana  Historical  Society.  Vol. 
VII,  1913-14. 


BERNARD  DE  MARIGNY  45 

office  to  sign  the  deed  of  transfer,  Madame  de 
Marigny  failed  to  put  in  an  appearance,  and  as 
her  signature  was  necessary,  on  account  of  cer- 
tain rights  she  possessed  in  the  property  about  to 
be  sold,  the  deal  could  not  be  consummated  without 
her.  Trembling  with  rage  at  this  unexpected  and, 
as  he  believed,  premeditated  disappointment,  Mr. 
Peters,  after  soundly  berating  Monsieur  de  Marigny 
for  his  breach  of  agreement,  finally  exclaimed:  ^'I 
shall  live,  by  God,  to  see  the  day  when  rank  grass 
shall  choke  up  the  gutters  of  your  old  Taubourg'!'' 
His  prophecy  was,  unfortunately,  ultimately  fulfilled. 

Marigny's  rapier  did  not  leap  from  its  scabbard, 
as  might  have  been  expected ;  for  in  another  version  of 
the  affair  that  comes  down  to  us,  he  had  upon  reflec- 
tion decided,  with  characteristic  arrogance  and 
obstinacy,  to  build  up  his  own  Faubourg  himself, 
and  make  a  Creole  city  of  it  that  would  outshine 
forever  the  American  one.  He  would  suffer  no 
usurpation  of  American  ^ 'genius^'  in  his  own  munici- 
pahty,  and  thus  the  refusal  of  his  wife  to  sign  the 
deed  gave  color  to  Peter's  suspicion  that  it  was  a 
ruse  of  Marigny's  own  invention.  A  suit  filed  shortly 
afterwards,  however,  by  his  wife  for  the  restitution 
of  her  paraphernal  rights,  exonerates  him  from  the 
suspicion  of  bad  faith,  and  gives  as  the  reason  why 
Madame  de  Marigny  did  not  sign  the  deed  that  she 
wished  to  protect  her  own  rights. 

Marigny  made  an  attempt  to  fulfil  his  ambitious 
schemes.  The  great  Marigny  property  was  cut  into 
streets  to  which  he  himself  gave  the  pretty  names 
Poet,  Love,  Good  Children,  Port,  Moreau,  Piety 
(but  the  original  of  this  was  a  friend,  Piet^),  Enghien, 
Craps  (from  the  game  of  cards  to  which  he  was 


46  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  ] 

addicted),  Bagatelle,  Desire.  The  pretty  names  are 
all  that  survive  of  his  scheme;  which  his  evil  for- 
tunes, and  not  his  will,  prevented  his  carrying  to  a 
success. 

The  losing  of  this  golden  opportunity  brought  him 
almost  to  the  verge  of  unpopularity  with  his  fellow 
Creoles.  Although  he  had  served  his  party  well 
and  had  been  sent  to  the  State  Legislature  in  1817, 
acting  there  as  President  of  the  Senate,  he  was, 
unfortunately,  not  elected  when  he  was  nominated  as 
candidate  for  the  position  of  Governor  of  the  State. 
''A  Creole  for  Governor!'^  had  been  his  slogan  in 
every  gubernatorial  contest.  He  claimed  that  it  was 
owing  to  him  that  Viller6  was  elected  to  succeed 
Claiborne,  and  added  with  caustic  wit,  when  Robert- 
son succeeded  Viller^,  ''He  will  be  succeeded  by  Mr. 
Johnson'^  (as  he  was)  ''and  Virginia  will  be  exhausted 
before  another  Louisianian  is  made  Governor  in  his 
country.'' 

His  last  public  service  to  Louisiana  was  in  the 
Constitutional  Convention  of  1845,  when,  as  he  says, 
he  defended  the  great  Democratic  principles  of 
universal  suffrage  and  free  public  education,  and 
when  also,  he  made  his  speech  in  defense  of  Pierre 
Soul6,  that  contains  the  ever-memorable  rebuke  to 
Judah  P.  Benjamin  which  sounded  the  death  knell 
of  American  exclusiveness  in  Louisiana.  No  politi- 
cian has  since  then  reopened  the  question  that 
Marigny  settled  forever. 


1 


"Sir,"  he  luldrcssed  Mr.  Benjamin,  "contrary  to  all  parliamentary 
usage  you  call  upon  the  other  distinguished  member  from  New 
Orleans,  Mr.  8oul6,  and  ask  him,  'Sir,  suppose  you  had  been  placed 
at  the  head  of  an  anny  to  meet  in  deadly  combat  your  own  country- 
men.   Could  you,  would  you  have  done  so?'    Sir,  I  tell  you  that 


BERNARD  DE  MARIGNY  47 

you  have  inflicted  upon  him  an  unjust  provocation;  and  I  give 
you  distinctly  to  understand  that  I  take  up  the  glove  in  his  behalf; 
and  Sir,  I  trust  that  you  will  not  complain  of  my  not  being  a  native 
of  the  country,  since  I  descend  from  those  ancient  warriors  who 
conquered  the  country,  and  here  represent  six  generations  of 
Louisianians. 

"Fortunately  for  me,  all  your  fine  quotations  are  lost  upon  me. 
I  never  read  any  of  those  works  which  are  supposed  to  make  a 
logical  man.  But,  Mr.  President,  I  am  one  of  those  who,  looking 
at  things  as  they  are,  feel  myself  able  to  meet  the  emergency  of 
the  hour,  and  to  accord  my  political  acts  to  the  political  needs 
of  my  country.  But,  Sir,  I  ask  you  by  what  right  do  you  expect  to 
disfranchise  in  1845  those  who  have  rights  guaranteed  them  in 
1812?  Sir,  I  tell  you,  I,  Bernard  Marigny,  tell  you  that  you  are, 
after  all,  nothing  but  the  servant  of  the  people — nothing  more, 
nothing  less;  presume  upon  your  authority,  and  they  will  soon 
bring  j'ou  to  a  just  appreciation  of  their  power  over  you,  and  it 
would  not  at  all  surprise  me,  if  they  were  to  obstinately  persist  at 
the  very  next  election  in  selecting  a  Governor  from  the  very  men 
whom  you  are  now  so  anxious  to  exclude.  The  laws  of  the  country 
recognize  no  distinction  between  one  class  of  citizens  and  another. 
Is  there  any  principle  of  free  government,  any  principle  of  repub- 
licanism, to  sanction  such  a  pretension?  They  say  that  a  naturalized 
citizen  is  not  to  be  entrusted  with  the  power  we  confer  upon  our 
Governor.  What,  Sir,  is  the  power  of  that  Governor,  compared 
with  the  power  we  are  administering  now?"* 

W.  H.  Sparks,  who  served  with  Marigny  in  the 
Legislature,  says  that  his  wit  and  satire  were  hia 
most  dreaded  weapons,  and  ridicule  was  his  forte. 
Mr.  Sparks  gives  the  following  incident: 

At  the  end  of  the  heated  debate  on  the  question  of  cutting  New 
Orleans  into  three  municipalities,  during  which  Marigny  had 
exerted  himself  to  the  utmost  to  protect  the  city  and  himself  against 
the  disaster,  as  he  saw  it,  Marigny  was  observed  passing  around 
among  his  friends  a  squib  containing  the  following  lines: 
"Sparks  and  Thomas  Green  Davidson, 
Rascals  by  nature  and  profession." 

•  De  Bow's  Review,  1846. 


48  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

A  day  or  two  later  Sparks  read  to  a  group  of  his  friends  his 
quite  Dufficient  retort.  It  begins:  "Dear  Marigny,"  but  concludes 
with: 

"A  warmer  heart  or  weaker  head, 
On  earth,  I  own,  I  never  met. 


And  on  your  tomb  inscribed  shall  be 

In  letters  of  your  favorite  brass 

'Here  lies,  O  Lord!  we  grieve  to  see 

A  man  in  form,  in  head  an  ass!'  " 
Marigny  heard  the  reading,  arched  his  brows  and,  without 
speaking,  retired.  An  hour  later  he  came  to  Sparks  and  said: 
"Suppose  you  write  no  more  poetry?  I  shall  stop.  You  can  call 
me  a  villain,  a  knave,  a  great  rascal,  every  great  man  has  had  that 
said  about  him.  Mr.  Clay,  Mr.  Webster,  General  Jackson,  all  have 
been  called  so.  You  can  say  that;  but  I  tell  you.  Sir,  I  do  not  like 
to  be  called  an  ass!" 

"He  was  the  aggressor,"  continued  Sparks,  "and  though  offended, 
was  too  chivalrous  to  quarrel.  He  had  fought  nineteen  duels  and 
I  did  not  want  to  quarrel  either."* 

The  last  remnants  of  the  great  riches  that  Mar- 
igny inherited  were  lost  by  him.  In  scriptural 
language,  his  fortune  took  wings  and  flew  away,  as 
fortunes  always  do;  unless,  as  Marigny  says  of  cer- 
tain rich  men  of  his  day  who  kept  their  wealth, 
''they  were  born  dead,  since  they  never  knew  how  to 
Hve/' 

When  he  was  nearing  seventy  years  of  age,  he 
wrote  in  self-defense  against  the  sneering  accusation 
of  poverty  and  printed  a  pamphlet  for  private 
circulation  :t 

"To  my  fellow  citizens: 

"The  calumnies,"  he  says,  "of  which  I  have  been  the  object  for 

♦  "The  Memories  of  Fifty  Years."— W.  H.  Sparks,  1870. 
t  "Bernard  Marigny 's  h.  scs  Concitoyens."    New  Orleans,  1853. 
Pamphlet  in  T.  P.  Thompson  Collection. 


BERNARD  DE  MARIGNY  49 

some  time,  the  epithet  of  'old  fogy,'  thrown  at  me  by  certain 
individuals,  force  me  to  give  to  the  public  the  following  facts." 

He  enumerates  his  services  to  the  State  in  a  very 
modest  and  moderate  vein,  and  then  follows  his 
private  explanation;  a  story  of  financial  loss  and 
failure,  only  too  well  known  in  Louisiana ;  a  road  to 
failure  well  trodden  by  sugar  planters  in  the  past. 

"Certain  persons,"  he  writes,  "have  often  asked  the  question: 
'How  did  Mr.  Marigny  lose  the  fortune  he  possessed,  of  five  or  six 
hundred  thousand  dollars?'  The  answer  to  the  question  is  as  easy 
to  make  as  to  understand — it  disappeared  under  the  influence  of 
events  and  circumstances  which  I  could  not  control.  In  1839, 
Messrs."  (he  names  five  gentlemen)  "undertook  the  estimation  of 
the  value  of  my  possessions,  an  estimation  I  judged  necessary  at 
the  time  of  my  departure  for  France.  The  amount  of  my  fortune 
was  fixed  by  these  gentlemen  at  nine  hundred  and  fifteen  thousand 
dollars.  My  debts  then  amounted  to  three  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand  dollars,  two  hundred  and  eighty  thousand  of  which  repre- 
sented a  debt  to  the  Citizens  Bank.  I  rallied  my  resources  and  asked 
for  longer  terms  from  my  creditors,  for  I  thought  I  could  re-estabUsh 
my  fortune.  I  had  a  sugar  plantation  and  a  brickyard,  but  to 
develop  the  sugar  plantation  I  needed  to  construct  buildings,  dig 
canals,  provide  equipments,  and  put  in  necessary  machinery.  To 
meet  such  great  expenses,  crops  were  needed.  They  failed  in  conse- 
quence of  a  crevasse  in  1850,  followed  by  another  in  1851.  That 
is  not  all:  bricks  fell  to  their  lowest  price"  (he  owned  a  large  brick- 
yard which  he  worked  with  his  slaves,)  "and  the  price  of  sugar* 
was  reduced  from  two  and  a  half  to  three  cents  the  pound. 

"On  this  the  Citizens  Bank  announced  to  me  that  if  I  did  not 
decide  to  sell  the  plantation,  they  would  seize  it.  I  was,  therefore, 
forced  to  sell  at  a  very  moderate  price.   The  Citizens  Bank,  naturally 

*A  cause  of  the  financial  distress  in  Louisiana  was  the  tariff 
which  had  depreciated  the  value  of  American  sugar  in  proportion 
as  the  duty  had  been  reduced  on  the  foreign  article.  In  1837, 
one  hundred  and  thirty-six  sugar  plantations  were  given  up; 
numerous  bankruptcies  followed.  Lands  could  no  longer  be  sold; 
fortunes  based  on  them  fell  even  more  suddenly  than  they  had 
risen. — Annals  of  Louisiana. 


60  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

took  possession  of  all  the  products  cf  the  sugar  house  and  of  the 
brickyard. 

"Calculating  upon  a  fine  crop  in  1851,  which  I  could  have  made 
if  it  had  not  been  for  the  crevasse,  counting  also  upon  an  office 
(that  of  Mortgage  and  Conveyance),  whose  commission  did  not 
expire  until  February  10th,  1855,  I  had  contracted  a  debt  of  eight 
thousand  dollars  in  order  to  put  my  stigar  house  in  a  condition 
to  work  profitably.    But  my  hope  was  disappointed. 

"In  1851  the  crops  failed.  There  remains  to  me,  therefore,  to-day 
only  my  office,  which,  as  I  have  explained,  expires  in  1855.  I  have 
still  a  few  slaves,  but  their  value  is  partly  covered  by  the  (para- 
phernal) rights  of  Madame  de  Marigny,  and  the  returns  from  their 
hire  pays  the  taxes  and  expenses  of  her  house.  As  for  my  other 
property,  it  barely  covers  what  is  owing  to  the  Citizens  Bank." 

The  site  of  the  great  Marigny  canal  on  Champs 
Elys^es,  which  in  colonial  days  had  fed  a  sawmill 
that  poured  gold  into  Pierre  Philippe's  coffers,  was 
bought  by  the  Pontchartrain  Railroad.  Fontaine- 
bleau  went  from  Marigny  and  all  his  land  in  Mande- 
ville,  with  the  exception  of  one  small  house,  which 
still  enjoys  local  fame  as  the  last  residence  of  the 
whilom  Lord  of  all  Mandeville,  to  which  he  would 
still  come  from  New  Orleans  seeking  recreation  and 
refreshment. 

Estrangement  from  his  wife  was  followed  by 
estrangement  from  his  children  and  grandchildren; 
the  friends  of  his  convivial  days  decUned  with  his 
fortunes.  He  retired  to  an  apartment  in  one  of  the 
houses  which  he  could  still  claim  as  his  own  (French- 
man Street,  near  Royal,  still  standing),  a  plain  three- 
story  brick  building  kept  by  a  colored  housekeeper. 
And  here,  in  sight  of  the  great  mansion  of  Pierre 
Philippe  de  Marigny,  his  father,  where  he  was  born, 
and  where  took  place  the  great  and  stately  entertain- 
ments that  made  the  name  of  Marigny  famous  in  the 
past,  in  two  rooms  furnished  with  remnants  of  his 


BERNARD  DE  MARIGNY  -  51 

old  furniture,  the  portraits  of  his  ancestors  on  the 
wall;  on  the  sideboard,  the  silver  service  presented 
by  Louis  Phihppe,  afterwards  sold  to  the  mint  by 
weight,  he  passed  his  days  like  some  old  sailing 
vessel,  its  stormy  voyages  over,  safe  in  the  harbor. 
In  this  seclusion  he  penned  his  pamphlet,  ^'Bernard 
]\Iarigny  a  ses  Concitoyens,"  in  1853.  It  concludes 
wdth  the  lines: 

"Nearly  seventy  years  old,  with  no  fortune  whatever,  I  ignore 
the  destiny  that  awaits  me.  However  painful  it  may  be,  I  will 
support  it  with  calm  and  resignation." 

In  a  postscript  he  adds : 

"Believing  it  to  be  my  duty,  before  descending  into  the  tomb, 
to  make  known  the  results  of  more  than  forty  years  of  minute 
research  into  the  history  of  my  country,  I  announce  to  my  readers 
that  I  am  at  present  writing  a  work,  already  well  advanced  toward 
completion.  Its  title  will  be  'Reflections  upon  the  History  of 
Louisiana,  \mder  France,  Spain  and  the  American  Government.'  " 

The  w^ork  did  not  advance  beyond  a  sketch,  which 
w^as  published  in  pamphlet  form  in  1854.  It  bears 
the  following  dedication: 

"To  the  Honorable  Members  of  the  General  Assembly  of  Louisiana. 
"Gentlemen: 

"Unforseen  vicissitudes  having  deprived  me  of  a  considerable 
fortune,  I  have  been  compelled  to  abandon  the  pohtical  career 
which  had  been  to  me  pecuHarly  attractive.  Consigned  to  an 
office  (mortgage  and  conveyance)  where  my  duties  require  my 
presence,  I  have  devoted  a  few  hours  of  my  leisure  to  a  work  which, 
I  trust,  will  at  least  show  my  attachment  to  my  native  land  of 
Louisiana,  as  well  as  my  devotion  to  the  United  States  of  America. 
This  work  is  dedicated  to  the  General  Assembly  of  Louisiana.  Be 
pleased,  gentlemen,  to  accept  it  as  a  humble  pledge  of  my  patriotism. 
"I  remain  with  respect, 
"Your  obt.  servt., 

"Bernard  Mariqny." 


52  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

It  closes  with  words  that  cannot  fail  to  touch  the  ! 
hearts  of  a  Louisianian,  or  indeed  of  any  lover  of  a 
''good  sport"  of  the  old-fashioned  kind. 

"Having  nearly  attained  the  age  of  seventy,  having  lost  my 
fortune  and  independence,  it  is  an  arduous  task  which  I  undertake. 
Reader,  I  solicit  in  advance  your  indulgence  in  view  of  the  motives 
which  renovate  my  strength  and  make  me  almost  forget  my  troubles. 
I  venture  to  hope  that  Providence  will  aid  me,  and  that  my  moral 
energies  will  not  be  wanting.  I  also  hope,  my  beloved  countrymen, 
that  you  will  say  at  some  future  day:  *We  have  read  the  work  of 
old  Bernard  Marigny — we  have  recognized  therein  his  patriotism.' 
To  noble  hearts  the  native  land  is  ever  dear!" 

This  tender  commitment  of  his  work  to  posterity 
stays  the  hand  of  a  Louisiana  critic,  which  would  not 
if  it  could  dissect  it  coldly,  any  more  than  it  would 
use  the  scalpel  upon  the  body  of  an  ancestor. 

A  prettier  historical  legacy  than  ''old  Bernard 
Marigny 's"  to  his  countrymen  has  rarely  been  made. 
Well  may  Alcee  Fortier  declare  that  it  was  received 
with  almost  fihal  respect.* 

Beginning  with  the  Treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
1748,  he  explains,  in  his  shrewd  personal  way,  the 
causes  of  the  American  Revolution,  and  the  subse- 
quent political  evolution  of  the  United  States,  its^ 
growth  in  power  and  in  moral  influence.  He  urges 
the  annexation  of  Cuba,  for  reasons  contained  in  his 
statistical  study  of  the  island.  Strange  to  say,  as 
Fortier  remarks,  although  writing  only  seven  years 
before  the  Civil  War,  for  all  his  political  wisdom,  he 
did  not  foresee  the  bloody  chasm  that  lay  across  the 
path  of  his  country.  He  was  confident,  he  says, 
that  the  compromise  of  1850  had  allayed  the  pas- 
sions of  the  United  States. 

•Louisiana  Studies.    1894. 


BERNARD  DE  MARIGNY  53 

In  his  relation  of  Louisiana  history,  he  "drank  of 
the  brook  in  his  way,"  and  he  passes  the  refreshing 
draught  on  to  his  readers.  The  faded  documents 
in  the  archives  of  the  Louisiana  Historical  Society, 
that  historical  students  study  to-day,  he  knew  prac- 
tically in  their  Uving  form.  From  Bienville  to 
Aubry,  from  Ulloa  to  the  old  and  infirm  Salcedo  and 
Casacalvo,  *'the  man  of  no  ability, '^  he  knew  every 
man  of  importance,  either  from  his  own  personal 
intercourse  with  them,  or  as  they  lived  in  the  memory 
of  his  father  or  of  his  father's  father. 

The  preliminaries  of  the  cession  of  Louisiana  was 
fresh  in  the  minds  of  men  whom  he  knew  in  France 
and  New  Orleans.  He  was  a  familiar  of  Laussat; 
Lafayette  was  an  old  friend,  and  so  were  Jackson  and 
Henry  Clay  and  Sam  Houston. 

Marigny  relates  among  other  personal  reminis- 
cences, a  conversation  held  with  Louis  Philippe  in 
1837,  when  the  King,  addressing  him  as  "mon  cher 
Bernard,"  asked  his  opinion  about  the  political 
condition  of  Texas,  and  whether  the  new  republic 
would  be  able  to  withstand  the  army  of  Mexico. 
Marigny  responded  that  the  King,  who  had  traveled 
all  through  the  United  States  and  knew  its  power 
and  population,  was  well  able  to  answer  his  own 
question ;  but  he  gave  his  reasons  for  believing  in  the 
future  of  Texas  as  a  member  of  the  Union.  The 
King  listened  attentively  and  observed  to  him: 
"What  you  say  is  very  reasonable."  The  RepubHc 
of  Texas  was  shortly  afterwards  recognized. 

"Louis  Phihppe,"  comments  Marigny,  "was  a 
wise  and  enhghtened  King.  I  have  seen  but  few 
men  who  entertained  a  greater  admiration  for  our 
institutions  and  high  opinionare    of  the  American 


54  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  ^ 

people.  Louis  was  really  a  man,  under  the  garb  of 
royalty;  he  was  a  republican  King." 

The  Louisiana  Assembly  passed  a  vote  accepting 
his  historical  sketch,  and  ordered  one  thousand 
copies  printed;  five  hundred  in  English  and  five 
hundred  in  French,  for  which  M.  de  Marigny  was  to 
be  paid  one  dollar  apiece. 

Marigny  lost  his  office  in  1855,  and  thenceforth 
lived  on  the  crumbs  of  his  former  possessions,  selling 
here  and  there  small  pieces  of  property  that  had  lain, 
as  it  were,  unnoticed  at  his  feet.  Having  lost  all, 
he  had  nothing  more  to  lose  in  the  Civil  War.  In  his 
humble  home  he  escaped  the  rude  hand  of  the  Mili- 
tary Governor  of  the  city  that  fell  so  heavily  upon 
his  descendants,  and  the  descendants  of  his  friends 
and  the  relatives  about  him.  He  has  left  no  record 
of  himself  during  these  hard  years  of  the  war,  nor 
of  the  harder  ones  of  reconstruction  that  followed 
the  war.  The  breaking  up  of  old  ties;  the  inroad  of 
strange  men  and  strange  measures;  the  wrecking  of 
old  estates  and  of  hopes,  old  and  new,  left  him  appar- 
ently, for  once  in  his  life,  speechless. 

He  passed  his  evenings  in  the  congenial  circle  of 
the  family  of  the  son  of  his  old  friend,  Governor  Clai- 
borne, where  he  devoted  himself,  as  he  had  devoted 
himself  through  life,  to  the  ladies;  amusing  them  with 
his  good  stories,  his  wit  and  his  puns.  Occasionally 
he  recited  for  them,  in  the  fine  manner  learned  in 
France  from  Talma,  in  his  youthful  days,  always 
choosing  some  beautiful  lady  to  address  as  queen. 
Never  sad,  never  complaining,  ever  the  polished, 
courteous,  dignified  old  French  nobleman  of  the  old 
r6gime,  who  for  all  his  gay  wit  and  persiflage  was 
never  known  to  speak  lightly  of  religion,  or  its  sacred 


BERNARD  DE  MARIGNY  55 

practices.  He  dressed  as  simply  as  any  citizen  of 
moderate  means,  but  he  always  wore  broad  silver 
buckles  on  his  shoes. 

The  handsome  residence  of  the  Claibornes  faced 
Washington  Square,  the  ground  which  Marigny 
had  presented  to  the  city;  its  lower  boundary  was 
the  Champs  Elys6es,  named  so  fancifully  by  him  in 
the  days  when  his  ideas  were  fanciful  and  poetical. 

After  his  evening  visit,  accompanied  always  by  the 
young  son  of  the  Claiborne  family  (now  Judge 
Charles  F.  Claiborne),  he  would  skirt  Washington 
Square  and  cross  the  Champs  Elysees  and  wend  his 
way  a  block  further  on  to  his  home  on  Frenchman 
Street,  talking  to  his  youthful  friend  of  his  old  days 
and  sowing  many  a  good  story  in  the  fertile,  appre- 
ciative mind.  Always  lively  and  interesting,  he 
never  let  fall,  how^ever,  a  word  or  hint  relating  to  his 
writings  or  to  any  serious  preoccupation. 

Of  a  morning  or  afternoon,  he  loved  to  saunter  up 
Royal,  Chartres,  or  Bourbon  Streets,  which  held 
the  houses  so  full  of  gayety  and  pleasure  to  him  in  the 
past,  and  which  must  have  lain  in  his  memory,  like 
some  fine  opera;  with  beautiful  scenery,  gallant 
actions,  charming  actresses,  lovely  figurines,  fascina- 
ting dancers. 

In  old  days  he  always  rode  in  a  carriage,  now  he 
went  on  foot,  sometimes  essaying  an  omnibus.  It  is 
related  that  he  never  found  an  omnibus  driver  who 
would  accept  fare  from  him.  ''No!  No!  M.  de 
Marigny,  not  from  you!'^ 

In  passing  a  house,  if  he  heard  a  piece  of  music 
beautifully  played  on  the  piano  inside  (one  heard 
such  playing  then  oftener  than  to-day)  he  would  stop 
and  listen.    Music  held  him  in  bondage  in  old  age  as 


56  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

in  youth.  Then,  mounting  the  little  wooden  steps,  he 
would  knock  on  the  door  or  ring.  When  the  servant 
opened  the  door:  ''Say  it  is  M.  de  Marigny."  He 
would  enter  without  ceremony  and  sit  in  a  chair, 
making  a  sign  to  the  pianist  to  continue,  which  she 
was  glad  to  do.  M.  de  Marigny!  Whom  would 
any  woman  rather  play  to? 

Men  would  stop  on  the  streets  to  look  at  him; 
''old  Bernard  Marigny!"  a  relic  of  Colonial  Days, 
walking  the  streets,  at  ninety!  Handsome,  active, 
erect,  with  intellect  clear  and  vigorous,  manners 
courtly;  the  hero  who,  in  current  parlance,  could 
throw  away  thirty  thousand  dollars  on  a  bagatelle, 
but  who  would  never  consent  to  bring  a  lawsuit 
against  a  fellow  citizen. 

So,  on  the  4th  of  February,  1868,  in  his  usual 
gayety  and  friendliness,  on  his  daily  promenade, 
greeting  those  who  saluted  him  with  kindly  cor- 
diality, his  foot  tripped  on  the  pavement.  He 
stumbled  and  fell  heavily,  striking  his  head.  Death 
ensued  almost  instantly. 

His  body  was  conveyed  to  his  apartment  on 
Frenchman  Street  and  there,  in  the  habiliments  for 
the  grave,  Bernard  de  Marigny  was  laid  underneath 
the  portraits  of  his  family  and  his  royal  friends.  "It 
was  impossible,''  writes  the  reporter  who  chronicled 
the  event  for  a  daily  paper,  "to  gaze  unmoved  upon 
the  aged  form,  the  last  of  the  Creole  landed  aris- 
tocracy, the  representative  of  the  strength,  the 
follies  and  wealth  of  a  passed  generation,  one  who 
knew  how  to  dispose  of  a  great  fortune  with  con- 
temptuous indifference.'' 

In  cold,  inclement  weather,  next  day,  the  funeral 
took  place.     An  extended  line  of  carriages  headed 


BERNARD  DE  MARIGNY  57 

the  long  and  imposing  procession  which,  passing 
Washington  Square,  slowly  proceeded  up  Royal 
Street.  It  stopped  not  at  the  Cathedral,  as  ex- 
pected, but  went  out  to  the  old  St.  Louis  Cemetery 
to  which  the  tomb  of  his  first  wife  had  been  trans- 
ferred. 

People  on  the  sidewalk  looked  with  solemnity 
upon  the  hearse  that  carried  him  who  for  seventy- 
five  years  had  represented  without  a  rival  the  life, 
gayety,  wit,  polish,  refinement  and  luxuriance  of 
society;  who,  for  all  his  wealth  in  youth,  died  poor 
yet  left  behind  him  nothing  to  put  a  stain  upon  his 
proud  escutcheon! 

He  once  wrote  an  epitaph  to  be  placed  on  his 
tomb  and  confided  it  to  a  friend,  but  when  the  time 
came  to  use  it,  the  friend  could  not  find  it.  He  could 
only  remember  that  it  was  well  written  and  charac- 
terized by  originality,  simplicity  and  wit;  not  osten- 
tatious nor  self-flattering.  The  epitaph  was  never 
found,  nor  the  other  valuable  reUcs  and  papers  left 
by  him. 

His  will,  dated  July  8th,  1865,  contained  the  fol- 
lowing requests: 

"I  ask  that  my  body  shall  be  placed  iu  che  tomb  of  my  first  wife, 
in  the  old  cemetery  facing  the  Carondelet  basin;  that  a  tomb  with 
two  compartments  be  made  there  of  brick,  plastered  with  cement. 

"My  grandson,  Gustave  de  Marigny,  is  the  head  of  my  family, 
being  the  son  of  Prosper  de  Marigny,  by  my  first  marriage  with 
Maria  Jones.  My  testamentary  executor  will  remit  to  him  my 
family  portraits,  the  engravings  representing  the  Orleans  family, 
all  ray  family  papers,  the  letters  of  my  ancestors,  and  correspondence, 
particularly  with  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  who  became  King  Louis 
PhiUppe,  and  the  letters  of  that  King." 

By  his  union  with  Mathilde  Morales,  Marigny 
had  five  children: 


58  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

*(1)  Antoine  James  (known  as  ^^Mandeville" 
Marigny;  born  1811,  died  1890.  He  mar- 
ried Miss  Sophronia  Claiborne,  daughter  of 
Charles  Cole  Claiborne,  first  American 
Governor  of  Louisiana.  She  died  in  1890. 
The  three  children  born  to  them  died  with- 
out issue. 

(2)  Rosa  de  Marigny;  born  1813,  married  to 
M.  de  Sentmanat,  of  Mexican  fame.  They 
had  three  daughters;  one  married  Nelvil 
Soul6,  son  of  Pierre  Soul^;  the  other  mar- 
ried Allain  Eustis  (descendants  living  in 
Europe);  and  the  third  married  Philippe 
Villere,  no  issue.  Rosa  de  Marigny  re- 
married, in  1832,  Enould  de  Livaudais;  no 
issue  by  this  marriage. 

(3)  Angela  de  Marigny;  born  1817,  married 
Mr.  F.  Peschier,  Swiss  consul  in  New  Or- 
leans. They  had  several  children;  one  of 
the  daughters  married  Leon  Joubert  de 
Villemarest  of  New  Orleans. 

(4)  Armand  de  Marigny. 

(5)  Mathilde  de  Marigny;  born  1820,  married 
Albin  Michel  de  Grilleaud,  son  of  the 
French  consul  of  that  name  in  Louisiana. 
Descendants  are  living  in  Europe,  where  they 
still  enjoy  the  highest  social   preeminence. 

By  the  death  of  Prosper  de  Marigny,  great-grand- 
son of  Bernard  de  Marigny  and  Mary  Jones,  his 
first  wife,  in  Mandeville,  1910,  the  name  of  Marigny 
became  extinct  in  liouisiana,  where  it  had  held 
sway  for  over  two  hundred  years. 

•Biographical  and  Genealogical  Notes  concerning  the  family  of 
Philippe  dc  Mandeville,  Eciiyer  Sieur  de  Marigny,  1709-1910. 
J.  W.  Cruzat.    Louisiana  Historical  Society  Publications,  Vol.  V. 


CHAPTER  IV 
BAYOU    ST.    JEAN— THE    DREUX  FAMILY 

IT  may  be  remembered  that  on  Iberville^s  first 
reconnoissance  of  the  Mississippi  River  in  1699, 
he  stopped  at  a  landing  reconmiended  by  his  Indian 
guides  and  was  conducted  over  a  short  path  to  a 
Httle  bayou  which  floated  their  pirogues  to  the  lake, 
where,  in  truth,  Iberville  could  see  his  ships  in  the 
distance.  This  incident  decided  the  site  of  the  future 
city  on  the  Mississippi,  the  guiding  star  of  Iber- 
ville and,  later,  of  Bienville's  ambitions. 

Bienville  in  course  of  time  adopted  this  shorter 
route  from  the  lakes  to  the  river,  in  preference  to 
the  longer  and  somewhat  dangerous  journey  through 
the  mouth  of  the  river.  From  his  name,  Jean,  the 
useful  little  bayou  received  its  name  of  St.  Jean,  and 
when  the  city  was  founded  some  years  later,  it  was 
by  this  back  door,  as  it  were,  that  new  arrivals 
entered  it. 

This  was  the  road  that  Le  Page  Du  Pratz  was  ad- 
vised by  Bienville  to  take  when  he  came  to  locate 
his  concession  for  a  farm.  His  ship  anchored  at 
Dauphin  Island,*  and  he  says  that  as  soon  as  the 
Te  Deum  had  been  sung,  in  thankfulness  for  the  safe 
voyage,  the  passengers  and  their  effects  were  landed. 
In  a  few  days  he  found  means  of  transportation  and 
hastened  the  departure  of  his  party  *Vith  as  much 
joy  as  diligence.'* 

*  "Sieur  de  Bienville."    Grace  King. 

59 


60  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

His  boat  followed  the  gently  curving  line  of  the 
Gulf  Coast,  passing  Pascagoula,  Biloxi,  Bay  St. 
Louis,  leaving  Horn  Island,  Ship  Island  and  Cat 
Island  behind  them  on  the  left — the  usual  and  always 
beautiful  itinerary  of  the  sununer  yacht.  Going 
through  the  Rigolets,  camping  en  passant  on  the 
Isle  k  Coquilles,  he  entered  Lake  Pontchartrain. 
Pointe  aux  Herbes  and  Bayou  St.  Jean  dropped 
behind  them;  Bayou  Schoupique,  which  was  guarded 
by  a  fort,  received  them.  The  boats  ascended  until 
they  came  to  an  old  village  of  the  Colapisas,  *'the 
nation  of  those  who  see  and  hear,''  where  they  found 
Jean  Lavigne,  a  Canadian,  estabUshed.  Dupratz 
sought  the  location  he  desired;  not  there,  however, 
but  on  the  Bayou  St.  Jean,  a  half  league  from  the 
capital. 

The  Bayou  St.  Jean  offers  the  visitor  to-day  the 
same  attractions  that  induced  Le  Page  Dupratz  to 
stop  on  its  banks,  with  the  soft  placid  aspects  of  its 
shores;  the  easy,  somnolent  serenity  of  its  tranquil 
waters,  too  tranquil  to  show  a  current;  the  drooping 
willows  hanging  over  it;  the  sturdy  oaks  standing 
on  the  high  land  behind  them.  The  scenery  woos 
the  eye  and  speaks  to  the  heart  to-day,  as  it  did 
then;  and,  as  in  Dupratz's  time,  it  charms  home 
seekers  into  preferring  its  beauty  to  a  more  profitable 
venture  financially  in  the  city.  The  sky  may  not  be 
bluer  overhead  there,  foliage  may  not  be  greener, 
flowers  not  bloom  more  spontaneously — but  they 
seem  so  to  the  denizen  of  New  Orleans,  who  loves  to 
leave  the  streets  and  their  car  lines  behind  him,  and 
wander  along  its  quaint,  pleasant  paths. 

The  concessionaires  on  Bayou  St.  Jean  throve  from 
the  very  beginning,  and  became  noted  as  much  for 


BAYOU  ST.  JEAN— THE  DREUX  FAMILY  Gl 

their  wealth  as  for  their  air  of  aristocratic  supremacy. 
Their  houses  were  the  first  to  show  a  pleasing  devia- 
tion from  the  absolutely  plain  structures  in  the  city. 
They  were  built  with  two  stories,  and  of  brick  laid 
between  heavy  posts,  ''briquette  entre  poteau,^'  as  it 
was  called  then. 

By  the  end  of  the  century,  visitors  were  taken  out 
on  the  Bayou  St.  Jean  Road,  to  see  the  handsome 
villas  there  and  their  gardens.  During  the  summer 
citizens  were  wont  to  go  there  for  fresh  air  and 
bathing — incredible  as  it  may  seem  to-day.  Tradi- 
tion says  that  the  waters  were  then  clear  and  limpid, 
showing  a  firm  white  sand  bottom;  the  bottom  of  the 
bayou  is  now  soft  mud,  the  stagnant  waters  are  dark 
and  have  an  evil  repute  for  producing  malarial  fever. 

In  the  Census  of  1726,  Bayou  St.  Jean  is  men- 
tioned as  an  "embarkation  to  reach  Biloxi,  Pasca- 
goula  and  Mobile.'*  It  numbered  of  masters  23, 
servants  6,  slaves  10,  horses  6,  cultivated  tracts  154. 
The  neighboring  village,  Gentilly,  settled  at  the 
same  time,  had  gone  far  ahead  in  its  prosperity. 
It  numbered  of  masters  21,  servants  50,  slaves  40, 
horned  cattle  139,  horses  11,  cultivated  tracts  291. 

The  authors  of  this  prosperity,  the  "Sieurs  de 
Gentilly, '*  as  they  were  called,  were  the  locally 
celebrated  brothers  Mathurin  and  Pierre  Dreux. 
Their  names  are  seldom  met  separately.  The  record 
of  the  family,  still  carefully  preserved,  begins  bravely 
with  the  name  of  the  Comte  de  Dreux,  fifth  son  of 
Louis  VI  of  France  (1108-1113)  and  quietly 
travels  down  across  the  names  of  Kings  of  France 
and  Dukes  of  Brittany,  through  centuries,  until 
it  comes  to  the  Marquis  Dreux-Breze,  Grand  Master 
of  Ceremonies  under  Louis  XVI,  to  whom  was  ad- 


62  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

dressed  Mirabeau's  thundering  answer,  ''Go  and  tell 
your  master  that  we  are  here  by  the  will  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  will  leave  only  by  force  of  arms !'' 

The  Louisiana  branch  of  the  family  begins  with 
Mathurin  Dreux,  born  in  1698  at  Savigny,  Province 
of  Anjou,  France;  son  of  Louis  Dreux-Breze  and 
Frangoise  Harant.  He  emigrated  to  Louisiana  in 
1718,  during  the  period  of  inflation  by  the  Company 
of  the  West.  According  to  family  tradition,  he  was 
one  of  the  men  who  accompanied  Bienville,  when  he 
actually  landed  on  the  site  of  New  Orleans.  It  is 
said  that  he  directed  the  clearing  away  of  the  forest 
and  alignment  of  the  streets;  and  that  he  signed  the 
Proces  Verbal,  sent  to  France  by  Bienville. 

Like  other  friends  of  Bienville,  and  like  Bienville 
himself,  he  obtained,  ''in  recognition  of  his  serv- 
ices,'^  according  to  the  accepted  formula,  a  large 
and  valuable  concession  of  land,  to  be  located  by 
himself. 

He  did  not,  however,  follow  Bienville's  example 
and  select  a  location  for  plantations,  either  above  or 
below  the  future  city.  With  a  shrewder  eye  for 
business,  he  chose  a  tract  richly  wooded,  lying  along 
the  Bayou  St.  Jean,  and  extending  over  a  ridge  that 
rose  from  the  flat  land  and  ran  like  a  fortification 
across  the  rear  of  the  city.  It  was  the  highest  land 
in  the  region,  well  above  the  constant  danger  of  over- 
flow from  the  Mississippi  or  from  the  bayou  when 
flooded  by  the  waters  from  the  lake ;  a  tract  of  land 
that  to  this  day  maintains  its  reputation  for  beauty, 
salubrity  and  fertility.* 

*  Mctairie  Ridge,  as  it  is  known  to-day,  is  the  truck  farmers' 
locality.  A  portion  of  it  at  present  is  Gentilly  Terrace,  the  most 
beautiful  of  the  suburbs  of  New  Orleans. 


BAYOU  ST.  JEAN— THE  DREUX  FAMILY  63 

Here  Mathurin  Dreux  was  joined  by  his  brother 
Pierre.  The  two  became  partners  and  engaged  in 
the  business  of  cutting  timber,  making  bricks  and 
raising  cattle — enterprises  that  at  that  time  offered 
a  sure  road  to  wealth.  Their  own  forests  furnished 
the  timber,  their  soil  the  clay  for  bricks,  their  clear- 
ings the  pasture  for  the  cattle,  and  their  slaves  the 
labor  needed. 

The  place  was  called  Gentilly  from  home  senti- 
ment (Gentilly  being  a  Commune  in  the  Depart- 
ment of  the  Seine)  and  in  a  few  years  the  brothers 
became  known  as  the  Sieurs  de  Gentilly,  and  are  so 
designated  in  official  documents. 

In  1732,  according  to  the  Cathedral  archives, 
"Mathurin  Dreux,  inhabitant  of  Gentilly,  an  officer 
of  militia  of  this  province,  son  of  Louis  Dreux,  citizen 
of  Savigny  Anjou,  and  of  demoiselle  Frangoise 
Harant,  native  of  Savigny,  diocese  of  Anjou,  and 
demoiselle  Claudine  Frangoise  Hugot,  daughter  of 
the  deceased  'garde  magazin  general  of  the  con- 
cessions of  Monseigneur  LeBlanc'  and  of  Frangoise 
Martin,  widow  of  Sieur  Moriset,'^  received  the 
nuptial  benediction  in  the  Parish  Church. 

In  the  year  following,  1733,  Pierre  Dreux,  desig- 
nated also  as  an  officer  of  militia,  was  married  to 
demoiselle  Anne  Corbin  Bachemin,  daughter  of 
Jean  Corbin  and  Anne  Marie  Judith  le  Hardy, 
natives  of  St.  Malo,  parish  of  St.  Lawrence.  Only 
the  immediate  relatives  signed  the  record. 

The  two  brothers  occupied  a  joint  home — a  hand- 
some house  with  spacious  rooms  and  galleries^,  sur- 
rounded by  gardens.  It  was  for  a  century  the  show 
place  of  New  Orleans,  to  which  all  strangers  were 
conducted.     Laussat,  in  1800,  writes  that  he  was 


64  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

taken  out  on  "Bayou  Road,  the  fashionable  drive 
of  the  city." 

The  further  life  of  the  two  brothers  follows  the 
uneventful  history  of  the  happy  and  prosperous. 
Living  in  a  style  of  stately  independence,  and  main- 
taining an  attitude  of  aristocratic  supremacy  over 
what  was  virtually  their  seigneurie  Gentilly,  the 
large  family  did  not  apparently  become  involved  in 
any  of  the  political  complications  that  troubled  the 
serenity  of  life  in  New  Orleans.  Perier,  Vaudreuil, 
Kerlerec,  followed  one  after  another  in  the  govern- 
ment; the  Natchez  massacre,  which,  like  an  earth- 
quake horror,  shook  the  colony;  the  Chickasaw  war, 
the  retirement  of  Bienville  to  France — there  is  no 
trace  of  these  events  in  the  records  of  the  family  that 
have  been  preserved.  Neither  the  heroic,  daring 
revolution  against  the  Spaniards  nor  the  fighting  of 
1815  counted  the  name  of  Dreux  in  any  of  their 
gatherings  and  proceedings. 

The  name,  in  fact,  is  to  be  found  only  in  the  record 
of  the  marriages  of  the  six  children,  and  of  their 
children  into  the  great  families  of  the  province. 
Frangois,  the  eldest  son,  married  a  de  Lorme. 
Gentilly,  a  Bermudez. 

Guy,  a  Beauregard,  the  great-aunt  of  General 
Toutant  Beauregard.    Guy's  second  wife  was 
F61icit6  Trudeau  de  Longueuil. 
Frangoise  Claudine,  the  eldest  daughter,  mar- 
ried the  Chevalier  Soniat  du  Fossat. 
Jeanne  married  Robin  de  Logny. 
Charlotte  married  Jean  Gabriel  de  Fazende. 
Their  daughter  became  the  wife  of  Jacques 
Philippe  Viller6,  first  Governor  of  Louisiana. 
On  the  death  of  Mathurin,  in  1718,  his  extensive 


BAYOU  ST.  JEAN— THE  DREUX  FAMILY  G5 

estate  was  divided  among  his  children,  and  in  the 
course  of  two  generations  the  great  fortune  of  the 
Dreux,  like  that  of  the  Marigny  and  the  Livaudais, 
became  subdivided  into  insignificant  fractions  among 
their  descendants. 

Guy,  the  youngest  son,  was  maintaining  the  brick- 
yard in  1796,  when  de  Pontalba,  as  he  mentions  in 
his  letters  to  his  wife,  visited  it  and  bought  from 
Guy  five  thousand  bricks,  at  eleven  dollars  per 
thousand.  De  Pontalba  mentions  the  gay  parties 
that  used  to  make  pleasure  excursions  to  the  Dreux 
plantation  at  Gentilly;  and  he  always  pauses,  in 
his  letters,  to  pay  his  compliments  to  the  ''Widow 
Guy  Dreux,''  the  most  beautiful,  charming  and 
agreeable  lady  in  the  city.  Before  her  marriage 
she  was  r^Ucit6  Trudeau  de  Longueuil. 

The  military  spirit,  however,  of  the  descendants 
of  *' Louis  the  Fighter"  was  dormant  only,  not 
extinct,  in  the  Louisiana  branch.  It  awoke  to  glory 
and  to  fame  in  1861,  in  the  person  of  Charles  Didier 
Dreux,  the  son  of  Guy  Dreux  and  L^ontine  Arnoult, 
and  grandson  of  Didier  Dreux  and  Mathilde  Enould 
de  Livaudais  (daughter  of  Jacques  Frangois  Enoul 
de  Livaudais  and  Marie  Celeste  de  Marigny). 

Charles  Dreux  answered  the  first  call  of  arms  made 
by  the  Confederate  Government,  three  days  after 
the  surrender  of  Fort  Sumter.  He  left  New  Orleans 
for  the  battlefield  as  Lieutenant  Colonel  of  the 
Louisiana  Guard  Battalion.  Three  months  later, 
at  Young's  Mills,  Virginia,  he  fell  at  the  head  of  his 
command,  with  the  words  on  his  lips,  ''Steady,  boys! 
Steady!" 

He  was  the  first  Confederate  field  officer  killed 
during  the  war.     His  body,  brought  to  New  Orleans, 


66  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

was  accorded  a  funeral  that  has  passed  into  history 
as  Louisiana's  tribute  to  her  first  dead.  The  children, 
who  were  taken  by  their  parents  to  see  the  funeral 
procession,  have  grown  old  and  white-headed,  but  the 
memory  of  the  martial  music,  the  draped  flags,  and 
solemn  files  of  soldiers  in  gray  uniform,  the  flag- 
draped  coffin,  has  never  grown  old  or  hoary.  Many 
a  child's  heart  passed  from  the  innocent  security  of 
childhood  at  that  hour  into  the  full  mature  reahza- 
tion  of  what  is  meant  by  war,  sorrow,  country, 
patriotism  and  heroism. 

Charles  Dreux  is  described  by  those  who  knew  him 
as  a  man  of  great  personal  magnetism;  brilliant, 
eloquent,  dashing.  His  picture  shows  him  to  have 
been,  indeed,  truly  noble  if  not  royal  in  appearance. 
His  widow,  on  the  fall  of  the  city  to  the  Federal 
forces,  sought  refuge  in  Havana,  where  their  only 
child  died.  A  brother  of  Charles  Dreux,  Pierre  f 
Edgar  Dreux,  who  married  Celestine  Sanchez,  was 
also  killed  in  battle  during  the  first  years  of  the  Civil 
War. 

The  name,  transplanted  from  France  over  two 
hundred  years  ago,  still  maintains  its  freshness  and 
vitality  in  New  Orleans,  contributing  its  quota  tO'[ 
census  and  directory.  The  proud  lineage  still  runs 
straight,  connecting  the  old  families  of  the  past  with 
those  of  the  present.  The  descendants  of  Mathurin 
Dreux  are  to  be  met  to-day  in  society  and  the  busi- 
ness world,  under  the  names  of  Beauregard,  Dugue, 
Verret,  de  la  Vergne,  Livaudais,  Jumonville,  Destr^- 
han,  Fazende,  Viller6,  LeBreton,  D616ry,  and  Soniat  i 
du  Fossat. 


CHAPTER  V 
A  ROMANCE  OF  THE  BAYOU  ST.  JEAN 

OTHER  settlers  besides  those  of  flesh  and  blood 
have  given  their  name  to  the  pleasant  country- 
side of  the  Bayou  St.  Jean.  Gayarr6  relates  a 
romance,  which  the  historians  make  a  place  for  in 
their  narratives,  and  which  is  still  repeated  by  all 
guides.  It  deals  with  Charlotte,  the  beautiful 
daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Brunswick,  a  paragon  of 
virtue,  beauty  and  talent,  who  was  married  to 
Alexis,  the  son  of  Peter  the  Great,  after  she  had 
given  her  heart  to  the  Chevaher  d'Aubant,  an 
officer  of  her  father's  household.  On  the  day  of  her 
marriage  he  received  a  passport  and  permission  to 
leave  the  country. 
To  continue,  in  Gayarr6's  words: 

"Whither  he  went  no  one  knew,  but  in  1718  he  arrived  in 
Louisiana  with  the  grade  of  Captain  in  the  colonial  troops.  Shortly- 
after  this,  he  was  stationed  at  New  Orleans,  where,  beyond  what 
was  necessary  in  the  discharge  of  his  duties,  he  shunned  the  con- 
tact of  his  brother  officers  and  lived  in  the  utmost  solitude. 

"On  the  banks  of  the  Bayou  St.  Jean,  on  the  land  known  in  our 
day  as  the  Allard  plantation,  there  was  a  small  village  of  friendly 
Indians.  With  the  consent  of  the  Indians,  d'Aubant  formed  there 
a  rural  retreat  where  he  spent  most  of  the  time  he  could  spare 
from  his  military  avocations.  Plain  and  rude  was  the  soldier's 
dwelling,  but  it  contained,  as  ornament,  a  full  length  and  admirable 
portrait  of  a  female,  surpassingly  beautiful,  in  the  contemplation 
of  which  d'Aubant  would  frequently  remain  absorbed  as  in  a  trance. 
Near  the  figure  represented  stood  a  table  on  which  lay  a  crown, 
resting,  not  on  a  cushion  as  usual,  but  on  a  heart  which  it  crushed 
with  its  weight,  and  at  which  the  lady  gazed  with  intense  melancholy. 

67 


68  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  tf  < 

This  painting  attracted,  of  course,  a  good  deal  of  observation,  but  ; 
no  one  dared  to  allude  to  it.    By  intuition,  every  one  felt  that  it 
was  sacred  ground,  on  which  enquiry  ought  not  to  tread.  \ 

"Where  was  all  the  while  the  Princess  Charlotte,  the  gilded  . 
victim  of  Imperial  misery?  One  day,  entering  his  wife's  apart-  , 
ments,  her  husband  requested  her  to  receive  a  female  scullion  of  i 
her  kitchen  on  whom  he  had  bestowed  his  affections.  She  refused;  | 
he,  heated  by  the  fumes  of  his  deep  potations,  worked  himself  into  >! 
a  paroxysm  of  frantic  rage,  and  with  wild  gestures  and  terrific  I 
shrieks  of  a  maniac,  rushed  upon  her,  and  -svith  repeated  blows,  ,' 
laid  her  prostrate  on  the  floor,  senseless  and  cold  in  apparent  | 
death. 

"The  Princess  recovered  from  her  swoon,  and  found  herself  alone  I 
with  her  friend  and  bosom  companion,  the  Countess  of  Koenigs-  •! 
mark.  Long  did  they  discourse  together  in  subdued  tones.  That ,' 
night  the  Countess  of  Koenigsmark  entered  secretly  the  Princess'  ' 
room,  and  there  was  re-enacted  that  scene  where  Friar  Lawrence  ', 
counsels  Juliet  to  feign  death.  The  imperial  funeral  took  place  'j 
according  to  the  plan  which  had  been  laid;  the  whole  of  Europe  i, 
was  deceived.  , 

"With  the  two  hundred  emigrants  who  had  arrived  in  March,  ,'■ 
1721,  there  had  come  a  woman  who,  by  her  beauty  and  by  that  i 
nameless  thing  which  marks  a  superior  being  or  extraordinary  ' 
destinies  had,  on  her  arrival  at  New  Orleans,  attracted  public : 
attention.  She  immediately  enquired  for  the  Chevalier  d'Aubant, ,: 
to  whom  she  pretended  to  be  recommended.  She  was  informed  that  -i 
he  was  at  his  retreat  on  the  Bayou  St.  Jean,  and  that  he  would*' 
be  sent  for.  But  she  eagerly  opposed  it,  and  begged  that  a  guide  ii 
should  conduct  her  to  d'Aubant's  rural  dwelling. 

"It  was  a  vernal  evening,  and  the  last  rays  of  the  sun  were 
lingering  in  the  West.  Seated  in  front  of  the  portrait,  which  we 
know,  d'Aubant,  with  his  eyes  rooted  to  the  ground,  seemed  to  be 
plunged  in  deep  revery.  Suddenly  he  looked  up — the  dead  was  alive  I 
again,  and  confronting  him  with  eyes  so  sweet  and  sad,  with  eyes 
8o  moist  with  rapturous  tears,  and  with  such  an  expression  of  con- 
centrated love  as  can  only  be  borrowed  from  the  abode  of  bhss 
above!  What  pen  could  do  justice  to  the  scene?  SuflBce  it  to  say 
that  on  the  next  day  the  Chevalier  d'Aubant  was  married  to  the 
mysterious  stranger,  who  gave  no  other  name  to  the  enquiring 
priest  than  that  of  Charlotte.     In  commemoration  of  this  event, 


:t 


A  ROMANCE  OF  THE  BAYOU  ST.  JEAN  71 

they  planted  two  oaks  which,  looking  like  twins  and  interlocking 
their  leafy  arms,  are  to  this  day  to  bo  seen  standing  side  by  side, 
on  the  bank  of  the  St.  Jean,  and  bathing  their  feet  in  the  stream, 
a  little  to  the  right  of  the  bridge  in  front  of  the  Allard  plantation. 

"Certain  it  is,  that  although  d'Aubant  and  his  wife  kept  their 
own  secret,  and  lived  in  almost  monastic  retirement,  rumors  about 
their  wonderful  history  were  so  rife  in  the  colony,  and  the  attention 
of  which  they  became  the  objects  subjected  them  to  so  much  un- 
easiness, that  d'Aubant  contrived  to  leave  the  country  soon  after, 
and  went  to  Paris,  where  his  wife,  having  met  the  Marshal  of 
Saxe  in  the  garden  of  the  Tuileries,  and  being  recognized  by  him, 
escaped  detection  with  the  greatest  difficulty.  D'Aubant  departed 
for  the  Island  of  Bourbon,  where  he  resided  for  a  considerable  time. 
In  1754,  on  his  death,  his  widow  returned  to  Paris  with  a  daughter, 
the  only  offspring  of  her  union  with  d'Aubant,  and  in  1781  she 
died  in  a  state  bordering  on  destitution." 

The  painstaking,  conscientious  historian,  Hanno 
Deiler,  after  quoting  Gayarr^'s  account,  ends  by 
saying  of  it:  *'It  is  a  pity  to  destroy  such  a  pretty 
legend."  Nevertheless  he  does  so  pitilessly.  His 
cold-blooded  investigations  prove  beyond  a  doubt 
that  no  such  name  as  d'Aubant  is  to  be  met  with  in 
colonial  documents.  The  marriage  records  of  the 
St.  Louis  Cathedral  between  1720-1730  register  no 
such  marriage. 

"The  legend,  therefore,"  says  Deiler,  "may  be 
pronounced  a  myth,  although  Allard 's  plantation 
is  still  pointed  out  as  the  dweUing  place  of  the  lovers, 
and  the  two  leaf-locked  trees  by  the  bridge  still 
bear  witness  to  their  happiness." 

Picket,  in  his  "History  of  Alabama,"  claims  the 
couple  as  residents  of  Mobile.  Tschokke,  the  Ger- 
man novehst,  places  them  on  the  Red  River.  But 
no  fact  in  her  history  is  so  firmly  believed  by  the 
romantic  people  of  New  Orleans  as  this  lovers'  tale, 
and  their  dwelling  place  has  been  assigned  to  various 
other  locaUties  favorable  to  the  seclusion  of  true  love. 


CHAPTER  VI 
DE  PONTALBA 

OF  all  the  good  old  French  names  that  her  mother 
country  contributed  to  New  Orleans,  not  one 
has  become  so  firmly  rooted  in  the  soil  as  that  of 
de  Pontalba.  It  has  kept  up  so  evenly  with  the 
growth  of  the  city  that  it  bids  fair  to  become  one  of 
our  most  enduring  landmarks. 

The  family  came  originally  from  the  old  province 
of  Quercy,  the  country  of  the  Cadurci,  as  indicated 
by  the  patronymic  Delfau,  a  corruption  of  Delfaon 
(beech  tree)  in  the  Romanic  language.*  Jean 
Joseph  Delfau  de  Pontalba,  the  first  of  the  name  in 
Louisiana,  came  to  the  colony  in  1732,  at  the  age  of 
nineteen,  with  the  grade  of  ^'enseigne  en  second,^ ^  with 
the  promise  of  promotion  that  would  seem  to  stand 
for  a  certificate  of  friends  in  the  best  place  for  an 
officer  to  possess  them — in  the  court  or  government 
circle. 

The  colony  at  the  time  was  what  would  be  called 
to-day  in  a  strenuous  period  of  her  history.  Perier 
was  closing,  with  doubtful  honors,  his  campaign 
against  the  Natchez  to  punish  them  for  their 
massacre  of  the  French  a  few  years  before.     The 

*  From  "Etats  des  Services  du  Sieur  de  Pontalba,  Capitaine 
d'lnfanteric.    Archives  du  Ministere  de  la  Marine."    Paris. 

De  Pontalba  was  the  name  of  a  fief  belonging  to  this  family 
(in  the  environs  of  Higcac  Depot);  first  assumed  as  a  family  name 
by  the  Louisiana  officer. 

72 


DE  PONTALBA  73 

Company  of  the  West  had  just  again  ceded  their 
charter  to  the  King;  P6rier  was  about  to  be  recalled 
and  Bienville  was  already  selected  to  succeed  him 
and  take  up  again  his  old  authority  as  Governor 
of  the  colony.  Pontalba  was  at  once  ordered  to 
the  Natchez  Fort,  which  was  under  the  command 
of  M,  de  B^nac.  For  a  year  he  was  busily  employed 
learning  something  of  Indian  warfare  for,  as  he 
wrote,  the  fierce,  irreconcilable  Natchez  harassed 
the  fort  continually  and  kept  the  French  on  a  con- 
stant pursuit  of  them. 

After  Bienville's  arrival  the  young  officer  was 
ordered  to  New  Orleans,  where  he  remained  three 
months.  In  token  of  the  terms  upon  which  he  stood 
with  Bienville,  we  have  the  following  endorsement 
by  the  Governor,  in  his  official  report  of  the  French 
officers  employed  in  Louisiana: 

"Pontalba  has  always  conducted  himself  well;  is  intelligent,  good 
looking,  sensible,  and  attached  to  his  profession. 

"(Signed)      Bienville." 

During  the  two  years  following,  Bienville  was 
employed  first  in  trying  to  detach  the  powerful 
Chickasaws  from  their  alliance  with  the  Natchez, 
and  when  this  failed  in  preparing  an  expedition 
against  them.  Pontalba  was  stationed  in  command 
of  the  post  at  the  Tunicas — the  Baton  Rouge  post. 
^Vhen  Bienville's  armament  was  ready  to  proceed  to 
Mobile,  he  and  his  garrison  were  ordered  down  the 
river  to  join  it. 

The  interest  in  Bienville's  graphic  account  of  his 
unfortunate  expedition  in  the  Chickasaw  country 
culminated,  as  all  who  have  read  it  remember,  in 
the  description  of  the  attack  of  a  picked  company  of 
one  hundred  and  twenty-nine  grenadiers  under  the 


74  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

command  of  de  Noyan,  upon  the  stronghold  of  the 
Acquia  village.  Pontalba  figured  in  the  list  of  officers 
who  led  the  attack  and  made  a  gallant  effort  to 
rally  the  men  under  the  deadly  discharge  of  the 
hidden  savages.  Our  chronicle  contains  a  short 
extract  from  de  Pontalba' s  account  of  the  expedition. 
The  whole  of  it  is  a  valuable  addition  to  our  archives, 
for  we  have  only  Bienville's  report,  or  rather  defense 
of  it,  and  d'Artaguette's  bitter  arraignment,  written 
in  indignant  grief  over  the  cruel  death  in  it  of  his 
young  brother. 

The  year  following  this  campaign,  de  Pontalba 
was  made  the  conunander  of  the  post  of  Pointe 
Couple,  one  of  the  most  flourishing  settlements  in 
the  colony  w^here,  as  Bienville,  writing  the  same 
year,  states,  a  hundred  thousand  pounds  of  tobacco 
were  produced  annually. 

Pontalba  remained  there  twenty  months,  or  until 
his  services  were  needed  in  Bienville's  second  expedi- 
tion against  the  Chickasaws — the  one  by  the  way  of 
the  Mississippi.  He  was  put  under  the  command  of 
de  Const  iliac,  who  was  engaged  in  establishing  a 
d^p6t  at  the  mouth  of  the  St.  Francis  River.  He 
was  sent  twice  into  the  Illinois  country  for  provi- 
sions for  Fort  Assumption,  and  acquitted  himself 
with  such  diligence  that  he  accomplished  the  dis- 
tance in  a  space  of  time  so  short  as  to  seem  incredible 
to  his  contemporaries. 

When  the  futile  campaign  was  ended  by  an  un- 
satisfactory treaty  with  the  Chickasaws,  Pontalba 
came  down  to  the  city  with  the  Governor;  and  two 
months  later  he  obtained  a  leave  of  absence  and 
sailed  for  France.  Bienville's  next  report  of  the 
officer's  serving  in  Louisiana  recommended  him  for 


DE  PONTALBA  75 

promotion  with  the  annotation,  however,  affixed  to 
his  name:  ''Has  served  very  well;  seems  to  have 
corrected  himself  his  very  marked  taste  for  com- 
merce/' 

Pont  alba  remained  in  France  for  a  year,  and  upon 
his  return  was  sent  by  Bienville  to  the  post  of  the 
Balize,  perhaps  to  remove  him  from  the  temptations 
of  again  yielding  to  his  mercantile  inclinations.  He 
remained  at  the  Balize,  however,  only  until  Bienville 
departed  from  the  colony  and  Vaudreuil  arrived  and 
took  possession  of  it.  He  at  once  reappointed  de 
Pontalba  to  his  old  post  at  Pointe  Coupee. 

According  to  the  marriage  certificate  in  the  Cathe- 
dral Archives  we  read  that  in  New  Orleans,  on  the 
4th  of  November,  1743,  in  the  Parish  Church, 
Messire  Jean  Joseph  Delfau  de  Pontalba,  Lieutenant 
of  Infantry  and  Commandant  of  the  post  at  Pointe 
Couple,  son  of  Messire  Frangois  Delfau,  Baron  de 
Pontalba,  Seigneur  de  Roquefort,  Pontalba  and  other 
places,  and  of  Dame  Louise  de  Lombard  (his  father 
and  mother  natives  of  Montauban)  was  married  to 
Dame  INIarguerite  Madeleine  Broutin,  daughter  of 
IMessire  Frangois  Broutin,  Captain  of  Engineers  of 
the  King  in  the  province,  and  of  Dame  Marguerite 
Madeleine  Lemaire,  native  of  the  province.  The 
bride  was,  as  we  remember,  the  widow  of  Frangois 
Phihppe  de  IMarigny  de  Mandeville;  her  sister  mar- 
ried Delino  de  Chalmette. 

Pontalba  remained  at  his  post  of  Pointe  Couple  ten 
years,  serving  the  King  and  colony,  doubtless  with 
honor  and  with  profit,  but  also  to  his  own  interest, 
according  to  gossip.  Kerlerec  relieved  him  from  his 
position  on  account  of  the  gossip,  but  stated  explicitly 
that  he,  personally,  did  not  believe  it. 


76  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Pontalba's  ten  years^  administration  at  the  post 
of  Point e  Coupee  was  signalized  by  great  prosperity. 
In  1749,  he  was  advanced  to  the  grade  of  Captain, 
and  in  1759  was  made  ChevaHer  of  the  Order  of  St. 
Louis.    He  died  in  New  Orleans  in  1760. 

Joseph  Xavier  Delfau  de  Pontalba,  the  son  of  the 
foregoing  and  the  New  Orleans  de  Pontalba,  as 
he  may  be  called,  was  born  in  New  Orleans  in  1754, 
but  taken  at  a  very  early  age  (presinnably  upon  the 
death  of  his  father)  to  France,  where  he  was  educated. 
He  entered  the  French  Army  at  Sevres.  Louisiana, 
having  become  a  Spanish  possession,  his  history 
diverges  from  it.  He  was  twenty-eight  years  of 
age  before  he  returned  to  his  native  city.  To  copy 
briefly  his  record  in  the  ^ ^Archives  de  la  Marine,'' 
he  was  named  to  the  regiment  of  Montauban;  four 
years  later  was  transferred  to  the  regiment  of 
Guadeloupe;  attained  the  grade  of  Lieutenant  and 
later  of  Assistant  Adjutant  of  the  regiment;  took 
part  in  the  campaign  of  Ste.  Lucie,  Granada.  He 
gained  distinction  at  the  siege  of  Savannah,  his 
conduct  being  praised  in  the  highest  terms  in 
written  certificates  from  his  commanders,  the 
Baron  Stredink,  the  Count  d'Estaing,  and  the 
Marshal  de  Noaille,  on  behalf  of  his  son  the  Count 
de  Noaille,  in  whose  division  Pontalba  served. 

Two  years  later,  he  figures  as  the  hero  in  ''A  duel 
in  the  army  in  1797,"  of  which  elaborate  details  were 
collated  from  official  documents  by  his  great-grand- 
son, the  late  Baron  Edouard  de  Pontalba  (Paris, 
1904).  It  appears  that  the  young  lieutenant,  sta- 
tioned then  with  his  regiment  in  Martinique,  too 
young,  as  he  acknowledged,  to  know  better,  took 
upon  himself  to  resent  an  affront  which  concerned 


f 


I 


li 
If 


DE  PONTALBA  79 

in  truth  only  his  superior  officer.  In  consequence, 
he  was  assaulted  in  the  street  by  the  enemy  he  had 
made  and  received  three  sword  thrusts  before  he 
could  defend  himself.  Bathed  in  blood,  he  was 
carried  to  the  hospital,  where  he  remained  eight 
months.  As  soon  as  he  was  able  to  walk  with  a 
cane  he  left  the  hospital,  determined  to  seek  his 
adversary  until  he  found  him,  which  he  did  shortly 
afterw^ards  in  the  street.  He  attacked  him,  but 
again  fell  w^ounded  from  a  thrust  in  the  side,  his 
quick-footed  foe  making  his  escape. 

On  the  advice  of  his  friends  and  to  save  himself 
from  a  civil  prosecution,  Pontalba  sought  refuge  in 
Martinique  and  remained  there  until  his  wound 
healed,  returning  to  his  regiment  more  determined 
than  ever  to  call  his  foe  to  account.  But  after 
searching  for  him  for  six  weeks  he  learned  that  ^'X'^ 
(so  the  adversary  is  designated  in  the  Lieutenant^s 
account)  had  returned  to  France.  De  Pontalba  was 
disposed  to  let  the  affair  rest  there,  biding  his  time 
for  revenge  until  chance  should  bring  him  face  to 
face  with  his  opponent.  But  a  letter  from  his 
superior  officer,  written  in  the  name  of  all  the  officers 
of  the  regiment,  assured  him  that  his  honor  required 
him  to  pursue  ^'X'^  to  France. 

There  was  no  avoiding  the  issue  or  the  hint 
conveyed.  De  Pontalba  obtained  a  leave  for  a  year 
and  hastened  to  France  where,  after  diligent  search, 
he  found  the  man  he  sought  and  forced  him  to  give 
satisfaction. 

A  duel  in  form  took  place.  This  time  the  ad- 
versary was  wounded  in  the  right  hand  and,  refusing 
to  continue  the  fight  with  his  left,  promised  on  his 
honor,  in  the  presence  of  the  four  seconds  (officers), 


80  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

that  he  would  meet  de  Pontalba  on  the  same  spot  in  i 
fifteen  days.    De  Pontalba  and  his  seconds  awaited 
him  punctiliously  at  the  time  and  place  appointed,  j 
but  the  Sieur  ^'X''  did  not  make  his  appearance, 
for  he  had  left  the  country.     Papers  were  drawn  up 
and  signed  by  the  seconds,  attesting  the  facts;  and 
these,  with  certificates  of  what  had  taken  place  in 
Guadeloupe,  were  submitted  to  the  Count  de  Genlis, 
Marquis  de  Sillery,  Captain  of  the  Gardes  du  Due  de 
Chartres,  who  was  the  supreme  French  authority] 
at  the  time  in  questions  of  honor.     This  high  officer, 
after  careful  study  of  the  papers  submitted  to  him 
and  due  consideration  of  the  delicate  affair,  pro- 
nounced the  decision  that  de  Pontalba  had  acted  as ' 
man  of  honor  in  every  particular,  and  was  entitled 
to  the  ^'esteem  and  friendship  of  his  brother  officers." 
De  Pontalba  was  ordered  to  rejoin  his  regiment  at ' 
Guadeloupe  and  resume  his  service.    The  fine  im- 
posed upon  him  for  his  infraction  there  of  the  public  ] 
peace  was  remanded. 

He  retired  from  the  army  with  the  grade  of 
Captain  in  1782,  and  returned  to  Louisiana,  casting 
his  fortunes  in  with  the  Spanish  Government.  He 
was  given  a  company  in  the  native  regiment  of 
Louisiana,  stationed  in  New  Orleans,  and  later  was 
made  Colonel  and  Commandant  of  the  Regiment  des 
Allemands. 

In  1789,  he  was  married  to  Jeanne  Louise  le 
Breton,  daughter  of  Barthelmy  le  Breton  des 
Charmeaux,  Mousquetaire  of  the  King,  and  of 
Frangoise  de  Macarty. 

Louise  le  Breton  des  Charmeaux  des  Chappelles 
came,  as  the  old  Creole  ladies  would  say,  from  far 
back  in   Louisiana  history.     She  was  the  grand- 


DE  PONT  ALBA  81 

daughter  of  de  Noyan,  Bienville's  grand-nephew,  who 
had  married  the  daughter  of  Nicolas  Chauvin  de  La 
Freniere,  the  glorious  Louisiana  patriot  executed  by 
O'Reilly.  It  may  be  remembered  that,  on  account 
of  his  youth  and  his  very  recent  marriage,  the 
young  man  was  offered  a  pardon  and  his  life  by 
the  Spanish  General,  but  he  refused  to  abandon  his 
companions  and  his  father-in-law.  La  Freniere, 
whose  last  words  were  addressed  to  him.  The 
young  widow  of  de  Noyan  afterwards  married  Louis 
C^saire  le  Breton  des  Chappelles.  Their  son,  Louis 
C^saire  le  Breton,  married  Louise  Frangoise  Ma- 
carty;  and  the  daughter  of  this  couple  became  the 
wife  of  Joseph  Delfau  de  Pontalba. 

After  his  marriage  Pontalba  entered  the  service 
of  Spain  with  the  grade  of  Captain.  Seven  years 
of  peaceful,  happy  life  followed,  the  only  important 
event  of  which  was  the  birth  of  a  son,  Joseph 
Xavier  Celestin  de  Pontalba  (1791). 

The  Pontalba  family  lived  on  their  Indigo  planta- 
tion outside  the  city  facing  the  river  where,  following 
the  example  of  thrift  of  their  neighbors  and  friends, 
they  drew  their  daily  expenses  from  the  profits  of 
their  garden  and  orchard,  sending  their  filled-up 
baskets  into  the  city  every  morning  by  their  ven- 
deuses.  These  were  selected  from  their  choicest 
slaves — strong,  straight,  sturdy  young  women  who 
could  walk  miles  holding  a  heaped-up  basket  on 
their  heads  without  wavering,  and  who  never  failed 
to  bring  back  the  full  amount  of  their  sales,  keeping 
their  accounts  in  their  heads  and  their  money  in 
kerchiefs  tucked  in  their  bosoms.  (We  shall  read 
later  Gayarr6's  description  of  them  as  he  remem- 
bered them  on  the  Bore  plantation.) 


82  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  | 

Madame  de  Pontalba  had  been  reared  as  a 
daughter  by  her  aunt,  Celeste  Macarty,  the  wife  of 
Governor  Miro.  When  Miro  was  recalled  to  Spain 
in  1792  he  left  his  private  affairs  to  de  Pontalba  as 
to  a  son.  In  1795  Miro  died,  and  his  wife  fell  into 
a  state  of  despondency  and  ill-health  so  alarming 
that  her  niece  was  summoned  to  her  side.  Without 
hesitation  on  the  part  of  either  husband  or  wife 
Madame  Pontalba  made  her  preparations  to  hasten 
to  Spain.  She  took  with  her  the  little  five-year-old 
son — the  apple  of  his  father's  eye — although  the 
voyage  was  fraught  with  danger.  She  had  never 
traveled  out  of  the  province  before  and  the  separa- 
tion seemed  almost  that  of  death. 

It  is  to  this  separation  that  we  owe  the  prettiest 
document  without  doubt  in  Louisiana  historical 
archives:  this  is  the  series  of  letters,  or  rather  the 
letter- journal  written  to  her  by  her  husband  during 
nine  months,  day  after  day,  from  the  24th  of  Feb- 
ruary, the  day  of  her  departure,  to  the  10th  of 
November,  when  he  announces  that  he  is  on  the 
point  of  leaving  and  will  in  three  months  be  reunited 
to  her  in  Spain.  The  picture  of  perfect  marital 
devotion  and  a  man's  virile  expression  of  his  gratitude 
to  the  woman  who  for  seven  years  had  given  him,  as  , 
he  writes,  the  enjoyment  of  the  purest  earthly  bUss, 
would  alone  give  to  the  letters  a  rare  and  unique  j 
interest  and  make  the  reading  of  them  an  intellec-  ' 
tual  treat;  but  we  are  concerned  here  more  in  the 
other  interest  they  offer  us  of  the  confidential  and 
frank  description  of  the  life  he  led  in  his  enforced 
widowhood.  The  incidental  details  fill  out  a  com- 
plete picture  of  what  in  truth  constituted   New 


DE  PONTALBA  83 

Orleans  a  century  and  a  quarter  ago ;  its  business,  its 
diversions,  its  sorrows,  its  gossip  and  its  truth. 

The  collection  as  a  whole  is  so  perfect  in  its  way 
that  to  detach  a  leaf  of  it  is  to  pull  out  a  petal  from  a 
beautiful  flower.  With  the  exercise  of  self-restraint, 
only  what  was  necessary  to  satisfy  natural  curiosity 
has  been  detached.  ^^Tintin"  Celestin,  the  little  son, 
flits  Hke  an  iridescent  butterfly  through  the  letters. 
We  can  see  the  father's  eyes  soften  and  grow  moist 
over  his  paper  as  he  writes  about  him;  and  our  own 
eyes  grow  moist  as  w^e  think  upon  the  great  tragedy 
awaiting  the  father  and  son  as  the  result  of  their 
passionate  love,  the  one  for  the  other. 

The  personality  and  the  family  of  the  Baron  de 
Carondelet,  his  wife  and  his  little  son,  Angelito;  his 
brother,  the  Abbe,  who  dies  of  yellow  fever;  the 
card  parties  at  the  Government  house;  the  set  of 
intimates  who  frequented  them — all  such  personalia 
are  new  to  the  historian  of  Louisiana,  and  are  pre- 
sented here  for  the  first  time  in  literature.  The 
description  of  the  insidious  advance  of  an  epidemic 
of  yellow  fever — the  first  epidemic  that  came  to 
New  Orleans — and,  day  by  day,  the  tale  of  its 
casualties  recall  to  the  dwellers  in  New  Orleans  only 
an  oft-suffered  misfortune,  the  catastrophic  details 
of  which  are  limited  only  by  what  human  nature 
can  suffer. 

Pontalba  describes  the  interesting  young  emigr6 
officer  de  Coigne,  his  brief  appearance  in  the  social 
fife  of  the  place,  his  fever,  his  death;  the  beautiful 
and  lively  Madame  de  Riviere;  the  hospitable  aunt 
de  Macarty  and  her  frolicsome  parties;  the  other 
aunts,  Madame  d'Aunoy  and  Madame  Jonchere; 


S4  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

the  shrewd  and  cunning  (as  he  calls  him)  Don  Andres 
Almonaster  and  his  pettish  wife,  Louise  de  la  Ronde; 
his  intimate  friend,  Philippe  de  Marigny  (the  splen- 
did host  of  the  Royal  Princes)  and  his  scheming 
in  a  bargain  to  get  ahead  of  de  Pontalba  (who 
showed  himself  not  a  whit  behind  him  in  money- 
making. 

We  are  told  of  the  house-building  for  himself  and 
Madame  Miro;  the  buying  and  selling  and  hiring 
out  of  slaves,  with  the  black  cloud  in  the  distance, 
but  ever  getting  nearer,  of  a  rising  of  the  slaves, 
spreading  from  the  insurrection  and  barbarous  out- 
rages of  the  blacks  in  St.  Domingo;  the  constant 
watchfulness  of  Carondelet  to  avert  a  repetition  of 
the  same  in  Louisiana;  the  secret,  gnawing  fear  of  it 
among  the  planters,  and  the  consequent  panic.  And, 
as  time  goes,  comes  the  infiltration  of  the  rumor  of 
a  political  change  in  Louisiana;  the  retrocession  of 
the  colony  perhaps  to  France  and  in  the  end  its 
probable  domination  by  the  United  States. 

The  enumeration  of  it  all  seems  endless.  Not  a 
letter  has  been  omitted  without  a  pang  of  regret; 
every  one  is  important.  What  has  perforce  been  left 
out  has  been  done  so  with  the  hope  that  some  day, 
by  the  grace  of  some  divine  historical  benefaction, 
all  the  letters  will  be  published  in  the  full  series  as 
de  Pontalba  wrote  them. 

The  first  two  weeks  give  the  chronicle  only  of  the 
days,  the  weeks  of  the  wife's  absence,  of  the  lonely 
house,  the  desolate  heart,  the  longing  for  news  of 
what  happens  to  the  vessel.  ^^What  of  his  dear  little 
love,  Tintin?  Does  he  talk  of  his  father?  Does  he 
want  to  put  his  arms  round  his  neck  'tighter, 
tighter,'  to  say  good-night  to  him?" 


DE  PONTALBA  85 

A  few  extracts  from  the  journal  follows: 

''13th  March. — I  have  been  passing  my  day  planting  strawberries. 
I  did  it  to  divert  me  from  my  weariness.  I  no  longer  have  the 
passion  for  gardening  that  used  to  furnish  all  my  amusement.  I 
see  now  that  you  and  our  son  were  the  end  and  aim  of  all  my 
occupations.  If  I  cared  for  the  flowers  it  was  in  order  to  see  your 
pleasure  in  gathering  them;  I  really  never  enjoyed  the  beauty  of 
my  strawberries  except  when  we  were  together  and  amusing  our- 
selves with  the  joy  of  Tintin  in  gathering  them.  I  see  them  now 
covered  with  flowers  without  taking  any  interest  in  them.  When 
I  look  at  them  I  seem  to  hear  the  cries  of  joy  of  our  little  love, 
and  I  stand  overcome  with  the  saddest  of  thoughts.  Where  are 
you,  77ion  amie?  .    .    . 

"I  am  gardening  more  than  ever.  Of  all  ways  of  passing  the  time 
I  find  it  the  least  insupportable.  With  Augustin,  when  he  has  no 
hauhng  to  do,  and  with  Baptiste  and  Jean,  I  busy  myself  working 
in  the  garden.  I  had  forgotten  it  completely,  but  on  walking 
through  it  I  saw  in  it  magnificent  cabbages,  already  headed,  as 
fine  as  any  in  Europe;  lettuce,  too,  fringed  and  headed,  superb 
brocoU,  and  already  some  httle  saucers  of  strawberries.  I  gather 
them  myself,  sending  the  handsomest  to  my  Aunt  d'Aunoy  (Made- 
moiselle d'Estrehan) :  the  rest  I  share  among  friends. 

"...  Just  ask  my  little  Tintin  what  he  wants  me  to  do  with 
all  these  strawberries.  There  are  two  big  bowls  of  them  a  day, 
large  and  ripe;  ask  him  if  he  does  not  want  to  come  back  and  let 
me  fill  up  his  little  wagon  with  them.  In  truth,  mon  amie,  I  have  a 
lot  of  them  and  I  am  passing  for  a  great  gardener.  I  am  making 
presents  of  them.  They  are  found  so  good  that  every  one  wants  to 
plant  them  now  and  multiply  them  everywhere.  Every  one  beheves 
that  I  have  made  a  particular  study  to  produce  things  in  different 
seasons  from  other  people.  In  fact  I  am  the  only  one  at  present 
with  headed  cabbage.  I  have  put  Jeannette  to  selling  them;  she 
brings  me  back  six  dollars  a  day  and  sells  all  that  she  has.  She 
only  sells  summer  cabbage,  brocoU,  and  fringed  lettuce.  Dussuau 
(de  la  CroLx)  is  jealous  of  my  talent;  he  pretends  that  I  make  more 
than  he  does.  I  do  not  sell  my  straw^burries :  I  give  them  away, 
but  they  would  bring  four  dollars  a  day.  Dussuau  complains  that 
his  sellers  are  so  poor  that  they  bring  back  nothing.    .    .    . 

"From  time  to  time,  I  pass  the  evenings  at  the  Govemor'3 
(Governor  Carondelet),  when  I  do  not  go  to  my  relations.     It  is 


86  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

4 

the  only  house  where  I  go.  They  play  cards  there — sometimes 
'Bourre/  sometimes  'Coq.'  Madame  de  Rividre  does  not  like  to 
lose,  and  gets  seriously  offended  with  those  who  do  not  treat  her 
well  at  these  games.  Treating  her  well  is  to  let  her  win  money, 
and  as  I  do  not  treat  her  well  she  finds  that  I  play  a  very  ridiculous 
game  and  criticizes  it  a  great  deal;  and  you  know  this  does  not 
make  me  more  complaisant.  Oh!  mon  amie,  where  are  those 
delicious  evenings  that  I  passed  with  you  and  my  son?  I  go  out  i 
and  I  look  everywhere,  but  never,  never  do  I  find  aught  that  can  r 
replace  them.    .    .    . 

"24.th  March. —  ...  All  this  bad  weather  has  put  our  levees 
in  the  most  unfortunate  condition.  I  am  afraid  that  le  Breton 
(her  brother)  will  not  make  any  more  than  Pedesclaux.  The 
crevasse  at  M.  Port's  has  been  abandoned.  It  has  become  so  great 
that  we  are  assured  that  it  is  a  second  Bonnet  Carr6.*  Massicot 
has  a  large  crevasse  as  well  as  Brand,  near  d'Estr^han.  Besides 
the  river  is  flowing  over  all  the  levees.  Our  fields  are  covered  with 
water.  Next  year  the  planters  will  have  to  add  a  foot  to  the  height 
of  their  levees.     .     .     . 

*'31st  March. —  ...  I  received  a  letter  yesterday  from  M. 
Herrera  announcing  that  he  had  forwarded  the  garden  seed  that 
M.  Paul  Miro  had  the  kindness  to  send  me.  Although  I  have  aban- 
doned my  garden,  the  seed  will  give  me  great  pleasure.  I  announced 
their  arrival  to  my  aunt  d'Aunoy,  to  whom  I  had  just  given  an  i 
assortment  I  received  from  New  York.  That  will  give  her  certainty 
of  making  something  out  of  their  garden,  which  they  wanted  to 
give  up  because  all  their  vegetables  were  brought  back  to  them 
unsold.  They  are  surprised  to  see  my  garden  at  present  full  of 
fine  cabbages,  brocoli,  beautiful  lettuce  and  spinach,  without  any 
cost  to  me.  It  is  sold  as  soon  as  it  gets  to  the  market,  but  I  prefer 
to  send  them  to  my  friends.  I  have  revealed  my  secret  to  them, 
which  is  to  get  my  seed  from  the  North.    .    .    . 

"...  I  passed  the  whole  of  to-day  at  the  Governor's.  I 
tried  to  get  from  the  Baron  all  the  circumstances  relating  to  the 
revolt  of  the  negroes.  It  seems  to  me  from  what  was  told  me  that 
there  was  very  little  reason  for  the  alarm  that  produced  a  very 
bad  effect.  The  slaves  are  not  ignorant  of  the  reason  why  many 
planters  have  brought  their  famiUes  to  the  city.  They  will  deduce 
from  that,  that  they  are  feared,  and  this  will  give  birth  in  their 

*  A  very  disastrous  crevasse  of  recent  occurrence. 


I 


DE  PONTALBA  87 

heads  to  projects  that  they  never  would  have  conceived  otherwise. 
In  fact,  the  planters  have  for  fifteen  days  kept  the  government  in 
alarm,  and  the  clearest  thing  about  it  all  ia  that  there  is  no  plot. 
The  three  negroes  who  have  been  arrested  could  only  be  convicted 
of  having  been  guilty  of  seditious  language  tending  to  a  revolt, 
but  it  could  not  be  proved  that  any  plot  had  been  formed  .  .  . 
and  it  now  appears  that  there  was  more  fear  among  the  planters 
than  danger  to  the  colony.     .     .     . 

"ISth  May. —  .  .  .  Another  very  boisterous  party  at  Gentilly. 
Tremoulet  took  charge  of  getting  it  up.  A  Ust  was  passed  around 
in  the  circle  of  Madame  la  Baronne  (de  Carondelet).  The  men 
each  gave  five  dollars  in  accepting  and  each  one  was  to  invite  the 
lady  he  wished.  I  like  to  contribute  to  the  amusements  of  others 
and  so  I  did  not  fail  to  pay  my  share,  with  the  tacit  condition  that 
my  presence  would  be  dispensed  with.  In  truth  I  profited  by  the 
excuse  given  me  by  the  rain  this  morning  to  remain  at  home. 

'1  know,  mon  amie,  that  it  would  give  you  pleasure  to  have  me 
profit  by  any  amusement  that  presents  itself,  and  that  is  a  reason 
for  me  why  I  should  not  miss  any  if  there  were  a  chance  of  getting 
any  diversion  out  of  them,  but  as  I  feel  that  I  should  bore  as  much 
as  I  am  bored  I  should  be  very  much  out  of  place  in  them.  It  is 
not  a  privation  but  a  heavy  duty  I  have  spared  myself.  When 
the  ladies  return  this  afternoon,  I  shall  call  on  them  and  shall  not 
fail  to  find  some  valid  excuse  for  not  going. 

"...  Ask  my  Httle  Tintin  if  he  has  forgotten  our  little 
crayfish  parties:  tell  him  I  saw  one  this  morning  that  interested 
me  far  more  than  the  party  to  Gentilly.  His  little  cousins  d'Aunoy 
with  Celeste  la  Jonch^re  were  fishing  for  them,  catching  fire  or 
six  on  their  line  at  one  time.  I  recalled  the  joy  he  would  have  had 
if  he  had  been  with  them.  I  could  see  him,  hanging  over  the  ditch 
at  the  bottom  of  our  field,  screaming  with  glee  whenever  he  brought 
one  up.     .     .     . 

"...  Mon  amie,  the  memory  of  all  these  little  nothing's 
and  that  of  the  perfect  happiness  I  enjoyed  from  your  tenderness 
and  kindness  during  the  whole  time  of  our  union  are  with  me  all 
the  time,  and  it  is  above  any  pleasure  that  society  could  offer  me. 
If  I  could  only  know  what  you  are  doing  at  this  very  moment; 
where  you  are;  what  is  to  become  of  you;  what  your  unfortunate 
situation  is,  and  that  of  our  Httle  love;  and  if  our  good  friends 
feel  some  consolation  from  your  presence!     .     .    - 


88  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

"22nd  May. —  .  .  .  Mdle.  Macarty,  with  whom  I  passed  the 
evening  in  her  box  at  the  Com^die,  spoke  a  long  time  about  you 
and  of  our  dear  good  aunt.  Tintin  was  not  forgotten.  When  I 
meet  with  any  one,  mon  amie,  to  whom  such  conversation  is  pleasing, 
I  never  tire.  Such  moments  are  the  only  ones  that  do  not  depress 
me.  My  Uttle  Tintin  took  much  of  my  thoughts  during  the  whole 
play.  I  seemed  to  hear  him  repeating,  'Down  with  your  arms! 
The  first  one  who  advances  toward  me  I  will  lay  him  low!'  .  .  . 
Tell  him  not  to  lose  the  habit  of  saying  good  night  every  evening 
to  his  papa.     .     .     . 

"2Jf.th  May. —  ...  It  was  before  your  departure,  I  think, 
that  d'Aunoy  received  a  letter  from  Z^non  Trudeau  at  the  Illinois, 
announcing  the  arrival  at  his  house  of  M.  de  Coigne,  an  6migr6, 
the  nephew  of  M.  de  Copineau,  who  asked  him  to  interest  himself 
in  the  newcomer  and  begged  him  to  engage  me,  as  well  as  Favrot 
and  others  who  have  served  under  his  father  (de  C's),  to  do  some- 
thing for  him.  He  praised  him  and  d'Aunoy,  who  at  that  time 
took  no  other  interest  in  him  than  what  was  inspired  by  his  attach- 
ment to  M,  Copineau,  asked  M.  le  Baron  (de  Carondelet)  if  he 
could  not  do  something  for  him.  He  wrote  to  de  Coigne  inviting 
him  to  come  straight  to  his  house,  and  he  arrived  yesterday  morn- 
ing. The  la  Jonch^re  family  were  staying  with  d'Aunoy,  and  his 
own  house  was  full,  so  I  hastened  to  offer  a  room  in  my  house 
which  d'Aunoy  accepted  with  pleasure.  He  had  begged  de  Coigne 
to  look  upon  his  house  as  his  own  home,  assuring  him  that  although 
his  fortune  was  not  in  proportion  to  the  size  of  his  family,  he  would 
take  charge  of  him.  When  I  entered  into  the  service,  the  father 
of  this  young  man  was  Captain  of  Grenadiers  in  the  regiment  in 
which  I  was  a  cadet.  He  had  a  pretty,  agreeable  wife,  of  pleasing 
manners,  whom  we  cultivated  a  great  deal,  and  he  used  to  receive 
us  in  a  friendly  way.  De  Coigne,  the  son,  does  not  need  this  to 
inspire  interest.  He  inspires  it  as  soon  as  he  makes  himself  known. 
I  told  d'Aunoy  that  I  wanted  to  have  my  share  in  providing  for 
him,  and  since  d'Aunoy  had  invited  him  to  eat  at  his  house  he 
must  leave  the  care  of  lodging  him  to  me.  He  has  arrived  naked 
after  an  emigration  of  two  years,  during  which  he  has  been  in  need 
of  the  necessities.  I  was  with  him  this  evening  for  two  hours  in 
his  room,  talking  all  the  time  of  you  and  of  our  good  aunt.  He 
showed  so  much  interest  and  he  is  in  such  full  accord  with  all  my 
sentiments  that  I  find  he  is  the  one  that  I  love  most  to  talk  to 


DE  PONTALBA  89 

about  you  all.  .  .  .  Good  evening,  good  night,  I  embrace  you 
tenderly.     .     .     . 

"...  I  began  my  day,  77wn  amw,  with  an  action  that  pleased 
me  very  much,  since  I  owe  it  to  you,  sending  to  Mde,  E.  what  you 
left  for  her.  I  should  like  to  have  something  as  pleasant  to  do  every 
day.    .    .    . 

"...  Tlie  son  of  M.  D.  has  just  arrived  from  St.  Domingo. 
He  left  it  only  fifteen  days  ago.  He  pretends  that  the  negroes 
there  are  absolutely  the  masters  .  .  .  and  that  at  the  Cape 
there  are  only  forty  or  fifty  white  men,  who  are  worse  treated  by 
the  negroes  than  the  negroes  were  ever  treated  as  slaves.  It  seems 
that  they  want  to  be  independent  of  everything  white,  even  of  the 
French  Republic.  A  Spanish  frigate  which  came  into  port  was 
forced  to  leave.  The  negroes  would  not  permit  it  to  stay  and, 
by  threatening  to  sifnk  it,  forced  it  to  withdraw.  M.  le  Baron  who, 
up  to  the  present,  has  been  so  vigilant  to  protect  us  against  suspicious 
folk,  has  relaxed  a  great  deal  lately.     .     .     . 

"...  At  last,  mon  amie,  I  am  thinking  seriously  of  building 
in  front  of  the  river  on  the  Grand  Pr6  lot.  My  plan  is  made;  the 
materials  bought;  and  the  trade  concluded.  The  news  yesterday 
decided  me.  We  received  from  Kentucky  the  Treaty  of  Peace 
between  Spain  and  the  Americans.  They  have  the  free  navigation 
of  the  Mississippi  from  its  source  to  the  sea  without  paying  any 
duty.  They  have  New  Orleans  as  a  place  of  deposit  for  three  years, 
and  every  kind  of  merchandise  is  allowed  them  except  munitions 
of  war.  You  can  judge  by  that,  mon  amie,  that  this  country  is 
going  to  become  one  of  the  most  prosperous  in  the  world.  The 
population  wdll  increase  in  an  incredible  manner;  property  will 
double  in  value;  stores  and  houses  will  be  rented  at  exorbitant 
prices  and  our  city  will  soon  resemble  Philadelphia  in  the  diversity 
of  nations  that  will  Hve  here.  One  of  the  articles  of  the  treaty 
permits  Hberty  of  worship  and  the  Americans  will  be  permitted 
to  bring  in  their  own  lawyers  to  settle  their  differences.  I  beUeve 
that  there  will  no  longer  be  any  Custom  House,  for  it  would  be 
useless.     .     .     . 

"This  treaty  is  already  ratified  by  Congress  and  should  be,  at 
present,  with  the  Court  of  Spain.  It  cannot  be  long  before  we 
receive  official  notice  of  it  here.  It  is  to  be  put  into  execution  six 
months  after  ratification,  which  would  bring  us  to  the  first  of  next 
October.     I  think  from  all  this  that  I  shall  be  able  to  sell  advan- 


90  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

tageously  all  my  built-up  lots.  My  intention  is  to  sell  the  seven 
stores  I  have  on  the  corner  of  the  'Contador,'  as  well  as  those  I 
have  in  front  of  the  Government  House  (on  Toulouse  Street,  be- 
tween Chartres  and  the  levee),  reserving  sixty-five  feet  depth  on 
the  whole  length  facing  the  river,  upon  which  I  could  at  once  put 
five  stores.  I  cannot  get  any  more  tiles  from  Pensacola  ...  I 
have  just  bought  twenty  thousand  tiles  at  fifty-six  doUars  a 
thousand.     .     .     . 

"...  Everybody  is  building.  It  is  inconceivable  the  rapidity 
with  which  everything  is  being  built  in  brick  as  a  protection  from 
fire.  I  have  found  nearly  all  that  I  need.  I  have  bought  them 
from  Madame  de  Marigny  through  her  husband,  who  prides  himself 
on  being  a  man  of  business.  .  .  .  This  evening  I  went  to  the 
'Com^die,'  because  they  were  playing  'The  Honest  Criminal.'  The 
piece  recalled  to  me  the  happiest  time  of  my  life,  though  it  was 
very  badly  given.  Henry  inspired  no  interest  in  the  role  of  the 
honest  criminal.  Fontaine  and  Madame  Marsay  were  the  only  ones 
that  gave  pleasure.    •   .   • 

"...  Behold  me  a  gambler!  Mon  amie,  look  out  for  your- 
self! Quick  to  my  rescue!  Your  presence  by  absorbing  me  will 
help  to  speed  this  kill  time,  for  I  cannot  call  it  otherwise.  In  short, 
I  went  this  evening  to  the  card  party  (at  Madame  Carondelet's). 
Madame  Landry,  Madame  Gauthier,  Madame  Macarty  and  others 
were  there.  The  ladies  are  now  reconciled  to  Madame  la  Baronne, 
whom  they  find  very  tactful.  In  fact  you  cannot  find  ladies  more 
amiable  in  society,  more  friendly,  more  simple,  more  affable,  than 
these  who  now  frequent  her  parties  and  who  are  attached  to  her. 
The  number  would  be  greater  if  it  were  not  for  'la  petit  Riv^re,' 
who  estranges  them  by  her  airs  with  them;  besides  she  never  loses 
a  chance  to  say  a  risque  thing,  which  she  takes  for  a  witticism. 
WTien  modesty  forces  the  ladies  to  pretend  not  to  notice  it  she 
thinks  her  witticism  is  lost  or,  no  doubt,  that  their  minds  are  obtuse 
and  that  they  have  need  of  an  explanation — which  she  gives  at 
once  without  being  asked,  always  at  the  risk  of  making  some  one 
always  blush.  So  she  is  never  at  her  ease  except  when  she  is  in  the 
company  of  la  Baronne,  Madame  Macarty  or  Madame  Maxent.  .  .  . 

"...  I  am  charmed  at  having  M.  de  Coigne  staying  with  me; 
he  often  keeps  me  company;  an  amiable,  solid  young  man,  sensible 
and,  I  think,  very  frank  and  honest.  He  is  of  a  very  gay  tempera- 
ment.   He  tries  to  recommend  himself  to  me  so  that  I  shall  make 


DE  PONT  ALBA  91 

a  pood  marriage  for  him,  one  that  will  relieve  him  of  his  troubles. 
For  four  years  he  has  been  without  resources,  living  from  day  to 
day,  and  never  knowing  what  fate  awaited  him  on  the  morrow. 
He  seems  grateful  towards  those  who  have  assisted  him,  although 
we  have  not  done  much  for  him.  He  came  here  with  only  the  clothes 
he  had  on  his  body.  We  introduced  him  everywhere  after  we  had 
provided  for  his  needs.  I  think  we  shall  be  able  to  get  him  out  of 
trouble.  In  the  meantime,  I  shall  see  that  he  needs  nothing. 
D'Aunoy,  seconded  by  his  wife,  treats  him  as  if  he  were  of  the 
family.    .    .    . 

"...  You  would  be  astonished  to  see  how  the  city  is  building 
up  and  all  with  terraced  roof  and  frame  work  covered  with  brick 
or  plaster;  there  are  hardly  any  traces  left  of  the  fire.*  Barthelmine 
Borgone  is  rebuilding  the  house  I  sold  him  on  Chartres  Street  and 
his  neighbor  who  bought  a  lot  from  Pierre  (Marigny)  is  building 
also.  I  judge  that  this  great  rush  of  building  will  make  rents  fall 
and  for  this  reason  I  feel  hke  not  putting  the  ceilings  in  the  houses 
of  your  aunt  and  leaving  the  woodwork  very  simple  so  that  the 
capital  required  will  not  be  so  great  and  for  fear  she  might  not 
receive  the  rent  I  flattered  myself  she  would.  I  am  following  the 
same  course  with  mine  which  I  am  not  furnishing  with  ceilings 
or  windows.     .     .    . 

"...  Pardon  me,  mon  amie,  I  must  write  you  one  word 
in  spite  of  my  fever.  You  know  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  live 
without  concerning  myself  with  you,  and  that  as  long  as  a  breath 
of  life  is  left  me  I  will  make  it  serve  to  repeat  to  you  that  though 
my  strength  may  decline  my  love  for  you  will  never  weaken.  My 
attacks  of  fever  have  been  long,  the  interval  between  them  short 
before  the  chill  seizes  me  again.  I  have  hardly  had  any  head- 
ache.   ,    .    . 

"...  De  Coigne  who  loves  greatly  to  visit,  begged  me  to 
take  him  this  afternoon  to  call  on  Mesdames  Dreux  and  Cesp^dez. 
The  former  announced  to  us  that  in  a  few  days  she  was  leaving 
for  Gentilly  and  she  invited  us  to  come  next  month  and  hunt 
grassecs  with  her.  As  for  our  cousin  (Cesp^dez),  she  inquired  all 
about  the  poor  emigrant  and  asked  him  a  thousand  questions, 
ending  by  telling  me  that  he  was  a  charming  man. 

*  The  great  fire  of  1787  that  burned  out  the  old  original  city  of 
Bienville.  The  new  city  that  was  built  was  practically  the  handsome 
old-world  city  we  see  to-day. 


92  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

*'14th  June. — In  passing  through  the  street  yesterday  1  saw  the 
children  of  M.  L.  The  poor  little  wretches  seemed  to  be  in  the 
greatest  poverty.  If  I  had  found  you  at  home  when  I  came  in  and 
had  told  you  about  them  you  would  have  done  something  to  help 
them.  I  did  not  want  them  to  suffer  too  much  by  your  absence 
so  I  tried  to  guess  what  you  would  have  done.  I  have  so  many 
half-used  things  that  you  left  here  in  the  armoires — stockings, 
drawers,  vests,  chemises,  skirts,  corsets.  I  cleared  the  house  of 
all  that  was  useless  and  sent  it  all  to  her,  for  the  poor  mother  will 
know  how  to  make  use  of  it  to  clothe  her  children,  ^^^lat  was  only 
a  nuisance  to  me  will  be  very  useful  to  her.  I  added  ten  dollars, 
thinking  of  the  pleasure  you  would  have  had  in  sending  them. 
She  has  thanked  me  in  a  way  that  shows  me  how  timely  the  little 
assistance  was.    ,    .    . 

"15th  June. — M.  de  Coigne  has  returned  from  his  little  trip, 
and  I  am  very  glad  of  it.  It  is  necessary  that  I  should  not  be 
alone  at  home;  I  am  too  much  plunged  into  sad  reveries  that  harm 
my  health.  He  is  well  satisfied  with  the  houses  of  Robert,  ]Mde. 
Marigny,  Destrehan,  Robin,  etc.  He  wishes  to  return  there  often, 
but  never,  he  says,  to  Mde.  Bore.  He  did  not  see  the  husband, 
and  the  wife  became  so  exalted  in  conversation,  with  so  much  fire 
and  so  much  passion,  that  he  had  doubts  for  a  moment  whether  he 
was  in  New  Orleans.  Miss  Hortense  seemed,  he  said,  to  have  the 
air  of  admiring  with  astonishment  all  that  her  mother  said,  and  he 
had  hopes  for  no  recourse  in  that  quarter.  He  has  become  well 
informed  as  to  what  would  suit  him;  it  seems  he  made  enquiries. 
He  understands  nothing,  he  says,  of  the  management  of  slaves,  and 
even  less  about  business;  he  sees  no  other  resource  for  him  than  a 
supportable  marriage,  and  in  this  is  all  his  ambition.  Celeste 
Marigny  would  suit  him  well,  but  he  fears  the  rivals  who  surround 
her;  he  would  prefer  Mdle.  Emme,  because  he  sees  in  her  more 
possibilities,  and  less  delay;  Mdle.  Collet  did  not  excape  him  either; 
he  is  careful  to  pay  frequent  visits  there  and  if  he  loses  all  hope  in 
these  quarters  he  will  see  if  it  is  possible  to  fix  the  attention  of  her 
who  was  able  not  to  give  way  before  the  attack  of  the  poor  great 
Captain  of  the  Grenadiers,  Chs.  de  Bouill6. 

"16th  June. —  .  .  .  Your  son  will  imbibe  such  principles  from 
you  that  it  gives  me  pleasure  to  think  that  he  will  have  a  sensitive 
heart.  That  would  be  the  handsomest  present  that  his  good  Maman 
and  his  excellent  Mairaine  could  make  him.    Never  miss  an  occasion 


DE  PONT  ALBA  93 

of  rewarding  him  for  any  trait  he  shows  of  sensibiHty,  kindness  and 
benevolence.  At  his  age  we  receive  the  impressions  that  remain 
engraved  in  us.  Accustom  him  early  to  know  the  price  of  the  true 
pleasures  of  doing  good.  If  during  the  Winter  he  meets  some  poor 
little  boy  of  his  own  age,  ill  clad,  encourage  him  to  ask  you  for  enough 
to  buy  him  a  little  coat.  Let  him  give  it  himself,  let  him  beheve  that 
the  little  creature  he  has  clothed  would  have  died  of  cold.  Let  him 
take  some  poor  little  boy  under  his  protection  and  try  to  find  a 
pleasure  in  being  good  to  him.  Let  him  see  from  time  to  time  the 
picture  of  suffering;  make  him  know  that  he  might  some  day  be  in 
the  same  condition.  What  dehcious  joy,  mon  aviie,  if  I  could  see 
my  son  sacrifice  his  playthings  for  actions  of  charity  and  humanity! 
Such  impressions  are,  in  my  belief,  easy  to  make  upon  children, 
particularly  when  they  are,  like  your  son,  of  a  good  disposition. 
What  is  neglected  in  education  is  the  heart,  which  is  just  where  we 
ought  to  begin  it.     .     .    . 

"16th  June. —  .  .  .  Inspire  him  above  all  with  the  strongest 
hatred  of  lying  and  deceit,  being  very  careful  yourself  to  be  always 
truthful  with  him.  I  have  often  seen  people  deceive  little  children 
to  spare  them  some  little  disappointment — conduct  as  detestable 
as  it  is  dangerous.  More  children  have  been  ruined  in  this  way 
than  in  any  other.  Never  make  a  promise  to  your  son  that  you  do 
not  mean  to  keep;  never  bind  a  promise  wath  assurances  and  never 
let  him  do  so,  or  he  will  not  look  upon  a  simple  promise,  a  simple 
yes  or  no,  as  a  certainty.  .  .  .  Tell  him  not  to  talk  "nigger" 
(Creole),  but  to  learn  Spanish.    .    .     . 

"...  This  is  your  feast  day,  mon  amie,  the  day  that  usually 
dawned  for  me  more  beautiful  than  any  other  seems  very  sad  to-day 
and  it  seems  to  me  emptier  than  any  other.  My  little  love  must 
have  given  you  his  good  wishes,  his  Marraine  would  not  have  let 
him  forget  that  little  duty.  May  Heaven,  vion  amie,  reunite  us 
soon!  That  is  the  most  ardent  prayer  inspired  by  the  wish  that 
I  cherish  with  my  hfe  to  see  you  happy;  I  could  not  be  so  myself 
unless  it  be  granted.    Good  night.    .    .    . 

"...  Chalmette  arrived  two  days  ago  with  his  family;  all 
of  them  very  well.  He  is  the  one  of  all  my  relations  to  whom  I 
am  the  most  attached  and  I  am  delighted  to  have  a  little  time  with 
him  before  his  departure.  His  family  is  very  interesting.  His 
daughters  have  grown  a  great  deal;  Victoire  is  very  pretty  and  gay; 
she  has  natural  wit  and  great  sprightliness,  and  she  has  developed 


94  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

much  since  you  last  saw  her.  The  elder  is  serious;  speaks  Httle, 
but  to  the  point.  Nothing  to  be  said  as  to  her  figure  but  all  praise 
her  character.  The  youngest  will  be  the  prettiest  of  all ;  the  mother, 
who  worships  them  and  with  reason,  congratulates  herself  upon 
getting  back  from  the  Post  so  that  she  can  give  them  what  teachers 
we  have  here  for  music  and  drawing. 

"Chalmette  tells  me  that  his  little  fortune  amounts  to  forty 
thousand  dollars.  He  would  like  to  get  a  little  establishment  outside 
the  city  so  as  to  live  more  economically.  I  suggested  to  him  two 
pieces  of  land  next  to  d'Aunoy  that  Martin,  the  tailor,  wishes  to 
resell:  one  hundred  and  twenty  feet  front  by  two  hundred  and 
twenty  depth.  I  could  get  them  for  him  for  eight  hundred  dollars 
on  a  long  term.  He  went  to  see  the  property  and  charged  me  to 
close  the  sale,  congratulating  himself,  with  cause,  on  his  luck.  One 
hour  afterwards  he  writes  me  that  Marigny,  whom  he  had  told  of 
his  acquisition,  did  not  think  it  an  advantageous  one,  and  that 
above  all  he  drew  his  attention  to  the  danger  he  would  run  in  case 
of  a  siege  and  he  begged  me,  therefore,  not  to  close  the  bargain. 

"Poor  Chalmette:  He  has  the  greatest  confidence  in  Marigny. 
It  needed  only  one  word  from  him  to  turn  him  against  the  acquisition 
of  the  piece  of  property  and  make  him  renounce  it  at  once.  Very 
well!  But  would  you  believe  it?  He  did  it  to  unload  upon  Chalmette 
his  own  plantation  below  the  city!  I  do  not  believe  he  will  succeed 
in  this.  I  do  not  believe  that  Chalmette  will  decide  to  put  so 
much  capital  in  such  a  piece  of  property,  two  leagues  below  the 
city.  It  would  absorb  his  entire  fortune  before  he  had  provided 
himself  with  negroes,  animals,  and  implements,  etc.,  etc.,  which 
he  would  need.  On  the  property  I  proposed  to  him  he  would 
find  all  these  things,  with  all  the  resources  besides  for  his  table: 
garden,  dairy,  etc.,  and  he  would  be  in  easier  reach  to  get  his  daugh- 
ters established  as  they  would  be  where  they  could  cultivate  society. 
His  wood  would  cost  him  nothing  and,  like  others,  particularly 
Mademoiselle  Macarty,  he  could  get  a  return  from  his  dairy, 
and  even  his  garden  could  add  to  his  daily  revenue.  I  made  him 
see  all  these  advantages,  which  he  appreciates  as  much  as  I  do, 
and  he  renounces  them!  I  am  sure  he  will  repent,  but  then  it  will 
be  too  late.  I  am  so  sorry  that  I  have  decided  to  buy  the  property 
myself.    ...    If  Chalmette  repents  I  will  cede  it  to  him.    .    .    . 

"...  I  was  invited  to  another  bathing  party  to-day  at 
Madame  Macarty's.    She  gives  these  parties  very  often.    Madame 


DE  PONTALBA  95 

la  Baronnc,  her  daughter,  and  Riviero  arc  at  the  head  of  them. 
Madame  Andry  and  her  sister  are  always  among  them,  and  Pey- 
tavain  never  misses  one.  The  huHes  go  at  eleven  o'clock  in  the 
morning  and  pass  two  hours  in  the  water,  going  under  head  and  all. 
I  make  the  great  heat  my  excuse  and  always  get  out  of  the  parties, 
and  as  it  is  not  long  since  I  have  had  the  fever  I  have  not  the 
appearance  of  ill-will.  The  truth  is,  I  am  absolutely  out  of  place 
in  such  parties;  they  bore  me  as  much  as  I  bore  others  in  them. 
Always  absorbed  in  sad  reflections,  the  amusements  of  others 
sadden  instead  of  enlivening  me.  If  you  were  here  with  our  son, 
if  your  absence  did  not  render  me  insensible  to  everything  else, 
perhaps  I  could  amuse  myself.  .  .  .  T  forget  myself,  man  amie, 
in  talking  to  you.  It  is  very  late;  a  terrible  storm  is  raging  outside. 
I  paid  no  attention  to  it  until  a  violent  clap  of  thunder  awoke  me 
from  the  dreaming  that  I  would  have  given  myself  up  to  for  still 
another  hour.    Good  night.    .    .    . 

"...  I  cannot  see  this  fifth  month  pass  away  with  calm, 
mon  amie.  It  is  about  time  that  I  was  hearing  something  from  you 
and  my  son;  I  fear  as  much  as  I  long  for  a  vessel  from  Bordeaux. 
The  most  distressing  thoughts  pursue  me  incessantly.  .  .  . 
My  God!  .  .  .  Perhaps  at  the  end  of  this  uncertainty  I  am  to 
hear  of  the  greatest,  the  most  terrible  of  misfortunes  that  could  be  I 
With  what  ardor  would  I  make  the  sacrifice  of  my  life  if  I  am  not 
destined  to  pass  it  with  you  and  with  my  son.    .    .    . 

"...  This  morning  at  four  o'clock  I  went  below  to  Marigny's 
to  settle  my  account  with  him;  I  passed  an  hour  there  and  we  talked 
of  Chalmette  and  his  fortune.  He  told  me  it  would  be  better  for 
Chalmette  to  have  a  plantation  than  the  small  property  next  to 
d'Aunoy,  and  he  gave  me  all  the  details  of  his  affairs,  which  he  took 
charge  of  during  the  six  years  of  Chalmette's  absence.  .  .  . 
All  this  confirms  me  in  my  decision  not  to  leave  my  business  to  him, 
as  I  once  had  the  intention  of  doing;  although  w^e  had  agreed  formerly 
that  he  should  take  charge  of  it.  I  shall  not  speak  to  him  any  more 
about  it,  and  I  shall  try  to  find  someone  who  will  not  mix  my  affairs 
with  his,  for  such  a  business  always  turns  against  the  one  for  whom 
it  is  made.  Very  surely  had  I  been  in  the  place  of  Marigny  I  should 
have  invested  Chalmette's  funds  in  such  a  manner  that,  on  his 
return,  he  might  have  been  sure  of  getting  them  back  when  they  fell 
due  in  case  he  wanted  to  turn  them  into  something  else.    .    .    . 

"Two  days  before  the  arrival  of  the  courier,  Madame  Andry 


II 

96  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  i 

told  me  at  the  Government  House  that  she  would  give  up  her 
loge,  if  any  one  wished  to  buy  her  share  of  stock.     As  the  letter 
of  your  aunt  announced  to  me  that  it  might  happen  that  you  might    \ 
Boon  return,  I  took  her  share,  because  her  Idge  is  the  best  in  the 
opera.    She  asked  me  two  hundred  and  thirty  dollars  for  it.  Madame 
Almonaster  proposes  to  me  now  to  change  the  box  with  her;  if  so,    j 
she  will  return  to  me  sixty  dollars.    I  ask  her  one  hundred  in  order    j 
to  pass  the  box  and  my  share  on  to  Chalmette  for  one  hundred    I 
and  thirty-two  dollars,  and  so  make  a  gain  of  one  hundred  dollars    i 
to  him  at  the  expense  of  Louison  (Madame  Almonaster).     I  will    i 
arrange  that  with  Chahnette.    ...  , 

"8th  July. — Captain  Robin  (just  arrived  from  Philadelphia)  has 
brought  back  the  son  of  Marigny  and  of  Madame  Dreux.    They    j 
are  returning,  having  made  only  a  short  trial  of  the  educational 
facilities  there.    .    .    . 

17th  July. — There  was  another  large  bathing  party  to-day  at 
Madame  Macarty's — the  closing  one,  for  it  will  be  the  last.  The 
water  has  gone  down  so  low  that  the  ladies  must  have  bathed  in 
the  mud.  It  was  more  impossible  than  ever  for  me  to  go,  though 
the  ladies  have  such  a  scarcity  of  men  that  they  press  me  to  accom- 
pany them.  .  .  ,  To-day  they  were  reduced  to  Peytavin,  their 
faithful,  unshakable  cavalier,  Andry  and  the  Chevalier  (the  master 
of  the  house),  (Chevalier  Macarty).  These  three  champions  had 
to  hold  their  own  against  the  ladies  of  the  Government:  Riviere, 
Maxent,  Gauthier  and  Andry.  Your  aunt  (Madame  Macarty) 
renews  these  parties  every  week,  but  she  will  have  to  give  another 
motive  to  them  now,  for  the  canal  to  the  mill  does  not  ofifer  water 
for  bathing  any  longer.    ... 

"...  I  am  giving  a  contract  for  the  houses  I  still  have  to 
build  on  the  Grandpr6  lot.  The  workman  pledges  himself  to  finish 
them  by  the  first  of  January.  They  are  to  be  two  little  houses 
(34  feet  by  28  feet  each),  with  one  little  story  and  a  kitchen.  The 
two  will  come,  I  think,  to  eight  thousand  dollars.  I  have  a  contractor 
for  the  carpentering;  and  another  for  the  masonry.  I  furnish  all 
the  materials.  You  see,  I  am  getting  everything  ready  so  as  not  to 
retard  my  joining  you  and  your  aunt.     .     .     . 

"21st  July. — Marigny  brought  his  son  to  see  me  this  morning. 
I  blamed  him  for  recalling  him  so  soon  (from  school),  but  it  seems 
that  at  the  North  one  receives  a  very  poor  education.  He  has 
brought  back  the  vices  of  the  country  and  the  rough  manners  of 


«; 


DE  PONTALBA  97 

the  Americans,  He  holds  himself  excessively  bent  over,  he  chews 
(tobacco)  continually,  swears  at  everything,  and  looks  bored  by 
everything  he  sees  as  well  as  by  everything  he  hears.  He  speaks 
English  rather  well  and  has  learned  it  in  a  very  short  time,  which 
proves  that  he  does  not  lack  intelligence  and  that  he  would  have 
learned  anything  else  had  it  been  taught  him.  Ilis  father  complains 
of  his  indifference.  On  his  arrival  he  came  up  to  his  father  very 
slowly  and  told  him  good  day  as  if  he  had  not  been  absent,  and 
this  after  having  embraced  Bernard!  Oh,  mon  aniie,  I  should  feel 
indeed  that  I  was  to  be  pitied  if  my  dear  little  Tintin  should  ever 
become  as  indifferent  to  me!  But  no!  He  has  your  delicacy  of 
feeling  and  will  never  give  us  cause  for  that  fear,     .    .    . 

"28(1  July. —  .  .  .  Here  I  am  with  something  more  to  do,  all 
on  account  of  taking  that  share  of  stock  from  Landry!  I  never 
thought  of  the  bother  it  would  give  me.  The  management  (of  the 
theatre)  is  going  very  badly  and  now  it  is  being  robbed;  the  stock- 
holders govern,  but  none  of  those  charged  to  /supervise  is  doing  his 
duty.  If  things  go  on  this  way  we  will  be  forced  to  give  up  the 
theatre.  As  soon  as  they  saw  that  I  was  a  stockholder,  they  all 
turned  to  me  to  straighten  out  their  finances.  There  was  a  meeting 
of  stockholders  to-day  in  which  I  represented  fourteen  persons, 
some  of  them  owning  two  shares  of  stock,  who  had  asked  me  to 
act  for  them:  Mmes.  Maxent,  Montaigut,  Guillemard,  Almonaster, 
BouUgny;  Messrs,  Marigny,  Ramos,  Lachaise,  Fouvargeues,  etc., 
with  the  result  that  all  who  were  present  at  the  meeting  unani- 
mously made  me  manager.  Although  I  was  representing  fourteen 
I  got  out  of  it  and  named  Pedescaux  in  my  place,  but  they  all  united 
to  beg  me  to  supervise  the  management.  I  could  not  refuse;  but 
I  am  going  to  be  the  bete  noir  of  the  actors,  for  I  saw  myself  forced 
at  once  to  lay  down  some  rules  against  which  they  at  once  protested. 
I  shall  neglect  nothing  to  get  out  of  cetle  gaVere. 

"...  I  passed  by  Madame  de  la  Ronde's  this  morning  on 
my  way  from  my  work;  she  was  so  insistent  that  I  had  to  stay  to 
breakfast  with  her.  Madame  Cesp^dez  saw  a  ring  on  my  finger. 
She  said,  'What!  A  ring!  And  it  seems  to  be  a  pretty  one  too. 
Let's  see  it.  I  declare  I  shall  write  to  my  cousin  about  it.  What, 
made  of  hair!'  And  without  ceremony  she  took  it  from  my  finger 
and  put  it  on  her  bosom:  'In  truth  it  seems  to  be  made  for  me. 
How  pretty  it  is.  How  new!  What  admirable  work!  Two  hearts 
pierced;  two  doves  tied  by  a  ribbon  that  tightens  as  they  separate, 


98  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

with  the  device  that  the  further  they  go  from  one  another  the 
tighter  it  is  drawn.  How  pretty  the  idea!  How  admirable!  Oh, 
my  cousin,  I  can  never  give  it  back  to  you.  Do  not  expect  it.  It  [ 
would  be  impossible.'  You  can  imagine  how  miserable  I  was. 
'But  why  should  you  prize  it  so?  If  it  were  from  Madame  Miro 
or  your  wife — well,  of  course!  But  surely  my  cousin  could  not  have 
had  the  time  to  have  had  it  made  in  Bordeaux!  Besides,  she  would 
never  think  of  it!  Take  care:  if  you  care  so  much  for  it  I  shall 
write  to  my  cousin!'  And  on  the  instant  she  flew  away,  to  reappear  ! 
without  the  ring.  I  said  nothing,  taking  it  all  for  play;  but  she  had 
put  it  into  her  head  very  seriously  to  keep  it  and  it  went  so  far  as 
to  provoke  me  out  of  my  good  temper  to  get  it  back  from  her. 
She  declares  I  am  very  unpleasant  to  refuse  her  a  trifle  that  gave 
her  pleasure. 

"8th  September. —  .  .  .  We  went  this  evening  to  the  reception 
of  the  famous  Knight  of  Charles  III !  {Don  cin  dres  almonaster.) 
That  poor  man  is  never  satisfied.  As  soon  as  he  gets  one  thing 
he  strives  for  another!  Now  his  mind  is  full  of  the  title  of  Brigadier 
and  he  can  talk  of  nothing  else.  Madame  don  Andres  is  pouting 
at  me  still,  and  for  some  time  has  been  distant  to  me;  although 
I  went  to  the  reception  of  her  husband  she  showed  no  wish  to  be 
reconciled  with  me.  I  would  not  have  believed  that  she  could  have 
kept  up  her  spite  against  me  so  long  for  a  little  piece  of  society 
pleasantry  in  which  I  had  no  part. 

"Some  time  ago  she  was  playing  cards  at  the  Government  House 
when  I  was  there.  Madame  Riviere,  who  loves  to  amuse  her- 
self with  childish  pranks,  had  tied  a  long  hair  to  a  coin  with  a  hole 
pierced  in  it  which  she  drew  away  slowly  whenever  Madame 
Almonaster  tried  to  take  it.  This  she  repeated  over  and  over  again 
without  our  cousin  seeing  the  joke  and  who  was  constantly  trying 
to  get  hold  of  her  picayune.  Madame  Riviere  was  choking  with 
laughter  as  she  whispered  to  me!  Louison  thought  that  we  were 
making  sport  of  her;  she  murmured,  frowning,  that  if  that  sort  of 
thing  continued  she  would  render  tit  for  tat.  Madame  Riviere 
grew  frightened,  and  I  whispered  to  her  that  she  was  exposing  herself 
to  a  scene.  Then  she  stopped;  but  the  other  one  remained  con- 
vinced that  she  had  been  made  the  subject  of  a  joke,  and  that  I 
had  started  it,  so  she  has  never  looked  at  me  since  except  with 
eyes  of  indignation. 

"The  reception  of  her  husband  followed  the  usual  custom.  He 
was  enveloped  in  the  great  mantle  of  the  Order  and  his  train  was 


DE  PONTALBA  99 

carried  by  three  lackeys  in  red.  An  immense  crowd  followed  him 
as  he  went  in  state  from  the  Cathedral  to  his  dwclHng.  He  placed 
himself,  in  his  mantle,  at  the  door  of  his  drawing-room,  where  he 
aflfectionately  kissed  on  both  cheeks  all  who  approached  to  greet 
him,  to  the  number  of  more  than  three  hundred.  About  eight 
o'clock  in  the  evening  he  sent  up  from  the  Place  a  balloon,  accom- 
panied by  a  small  display  of  fireworks  at  the  end  of  a  collation 
consisting  entirely  of  sweetmeats,  they  played  cards  until  ten 
o'clock.  Folch,  who  stayed  through  all  of  it,  told  me  all  this,  for 
I  did  not  go  up  to  greet  the  new  Chevalier.  He  has  not  yet  finished 
the  balcony  on  the  house  of  my  aunt,  there  is  still  only  one  end  of 
it  laid,  and  as  long  as  I  have  any  business  with  him,  I  wish  to  see 
him  only  at  a  distance. 

"18th  September. — The  deluge  of  rain  continues;  it  has  been  so 
for  three  or  four  days  without  ceasing.  I  have  never  seen  such  a 
continuous  rain  here,  above  all  in  the  middle  of  September.  No 
matter  how  disagreeable  the  weather  is,  it  pleases  every  one;  all 
over  the  city  people  are  terrorized  by  the  fear  of  an  epidemic — 
the  women  above  all;  they  even  went  so  far  as  to  wear  garhc  on 
their  bodies  and  carry  hartshorn;  everywhere  tar  is  being  burned. 
The  doctors  and  priests  concealed  the  number  of  deaths;  now  that 
there  seems  nothing  more  to  fear,  we  learn  that  there  were  at  least 
fifteen  or  seventeen  deaths  a  day;  but  this  did  not  last  long.    .    .    . 

"...  Mme.  Le  Blanc  died  this  morning;  her  son,  Terence, 
is  dangerously  ill.  M.  de  Turpin  will  not  last  through  the  day. 
He  is  the  grandson  of  the  Marechal  de  Lowendal  and  Chevalier 
of  Malta;  he  is  thirty  years  of  age,  and  had  a  fine  constitution. 
He  is  a  connection  of  Baron  de  Carondelet.  M.  Laf argue,  whom 
you  must  have  met  in  Bordeaux,  is  also  very  low.  Many  English- 
men and  Americans  are  dying.  In  burying  a  Protestant  lately, 
five  corpses  were  found  in  the  back  of  the  Protestant  corner  of  the 
cemetery,  apparently  covered  only  with  branches  and  leaves.  They 
had  not  taken  the  time  to  bury  them.  Such  negligence  is  enough  to 
give  us  the  plague.  The  greatest  precautions  are  now  being  taken 
to  put  order  into  such  things,  and  to  discover  the  authors  of  the 
affair  and  to  punish  them. 

"I  repeat,  mon  amie,  do  not  alarm  yourself  about  me.  I  am  well 
and  am  taking  good  care  of  myself.  I  go  very  seldom  into  the  city, 
and  I  shall  take  care  not  to  put  this  letter  into  the  post  until  the 
epidemic  is  over. 

*^22d  September. — More  bad  news!    Turpin  died  yesterday  after- 


100  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

noon,  and  his  doctors  ordered  him  to  be  buried  at  once.  One 
hardly  took  the  time  to  put  him  in  a  cofiin.  No  one  could  be  found 
to  carry  him.  The  whole  city  is  in  alarm.  Many  have  gone  away 
to  the  country.  Every  one  you  meet  is  asking  news  about  some 
sick  person.  A  Captain  of  the  Mexican  Regiment  is  very  ill,  and 
Madame  Gauthier,  wife  of  the  Major,  is  in  danger.  In  spite  of 
it  all,  I  think  the  panic  very  mat  a  propos.  I  remember  that  after 
the  fire  of  1788  there  was  a  greater  mortality  than  now. 

"I  am  not  satisfied  with  the  condition  of  Polidore;  his  crisis  of 
fever  now  is  the  worst  he  has  had,  and  his  illness  is  taking  an  alarm- 
ing character.  Zerbin,  going  yesterday  to  see  a  workman  of  Mon- 
treuil  who  died  to-day,  was  suffocated  with  the  bad  odor  of  his 
patient,  and  an  instant  after  he  was  taken  with  the  same  fever. 
He  is,  they  say,  in  the  greatest  danger.  Madame  Riviere  and 
Mademoiselle  Phelipa  are  frightened  to  death.  Madame  Macarty, 
who  never  comes  into  the  city,  has  invited  them  to  come  over  to 
her  on  the  other  bank  of  the  river.  The  Baronne  consents,  but 
she  does  not  wish  to  leave  the  Baron  alone,  and  they  are  all  begging 
him  to  go  with  them.  He  is  firmly  resolved  not  to  do  so.  He 
thinks  if  he  goes  away  it  will  increase  the  panic,  which  is  only 
too  general.  It  would  only  need  for  him  to  go  out  of  the  city  for 
everyone  to  rush  to  the  country.    .    .    . 

"24f'h  September. — The  sickness  does  not  cease,  mon  amie.  Every- 
body is  frightened,  particularly  the  strangers.  Besides  the  seven 
or  eight  who  have  died  in  the  hospital,  we  counted  up  yesterday 
nine  or  ten  more,  so  that  to-day  more  than  eighty  left  for  the 
country.  Those  who  have  no  friends  there  have  gone  to  Barataria 
and  to  the  other  side  of  the  lake.  They  will,  of  course,  carry  the 
sickness  with  them.  We  are  all  agreed  that  it  is  the  Yellow  Fever 
that  rages  nearly  every  year  in  Philadelphia,  and  that  the  Americans 
brought  it  in.    .    .    . 

*'25th  September. — As  for  Annette,  she  is  sold  for  the  same  price 
that  you  paid  for  her — nine  hundred  dollars.  ...  If  I  cannot 
bring  her  to  you  I  shall  myself  learn  how  to  make  Gombos  and 
Galas,  so  as  to  be  able  to  show  some  of  your  servants  in  Spain 
how  to  make  them.  I  have  already  laid  in  a  nice  supply  of  excellent 
orange  flower  (water  or  syrup)  for  my  good  aunt,  and  I  shall  leave 
an  order  to  send  some  every  year  to  Barcelona.    .    .    . 

".  .  .  Every  thing  you  tell  me  about  my  son,  mon  amie,  gives 
me  sweet  satisfaction.     Tell  him  that  I  have  answered  his  little 


DE  P0NTAL3A  101 

letter  and  have  sent  him  some  toys  and  pralines.  Be  at  case  about 
my  voyage.  I  have  too  much  at  stake  not  to  take  all  the  precau- 
tions you  desire.  I  feel  that  I  exist  more  for  you  than  for  myself; 
that  I  owe  myself  to  you,  to  oar  son  and  to  our  aunt  ...  I  do 
not  know  wliat  our  political  situation  will  be  at  the  time  of  my 
departure,  fixed  for  February.  We  may  then  be  at  war  with  the 
Enghsh  and  even  with  the  Americans.  M.  le  Baron  is  always  expect- 
ing some  rupture.  On  the  other  hand,  rumors  of  the  cession  of  the 
province  to  France  are  being  confirmed.  All  here  believe  it.  The 
Baron  is  the  only  one  who  is  sure  there  is  nothing  in  it  and  he  must 
have  some  particular  reason  for  his  belief.  At  any  rate,  the  situation 
we  are  in  is  very  critical  and  my  fate  very  uncertain.  Good  night, 
ma  bonne  amie.takecareof  yourself  and  of  our  good  aunt  and  may  I 
at  least  be  able  to  provide  for  you  both  comfortably  before  we  have 
here  the  scene  of  a  revolution! 

''30th  Se-ptemher. — .  .  .  The  North  wind  is  still  continuing, 
although  not  so  strong  as  it  was.  It  has  absolutely  destroyed  all 
contagion;  we  have  no  more  epidemic.  We  are  assured  that  all 
those  who  went  to  the  country  were  not  attacked  and  that  very  few 
of  those  who  were  acclimated  died.  It  was  the  same  with  the  sol- 
diers; the  mortahty  was  greatest  with  the  newcomers,  particularly 
among  the  English.    .    .    . 

''Zd  October. — At  last,  mon  amie,  here  is  the  month  of  October! 
Already  a  year  since  we  sold  our  plantation!  A  year  since  you  were 
to  leave  to  join  our  good  aunt!  I  have  every  reason  to  think  that  in 
four  months  I  shall  be  on  my  way  to  you.  The  bad  season  is  now 
over;  I  shall  profit  by  every  minute  to  finish  my  business.  I  think 
that  by  the  end  of  October,  there  will  no  longer  be  any  question  of 
the  sickness.  A  few  who  were  attacked  are  still  dying.  Made- 
moiselle E.,  the  one  who  wanted  to  marry  de  Coigne,  has  just  died; 
and  Miller,  the  artist,  who  Hved  at  the  Marigny's.  Mademoiselle 
de  la  Chaise  is,  they  say,  beyond  hope;  the  sacrament  was  adminis- 
tered to  her  last  night.  This  morning  I  went  to  see  Madame  Dreux. 
She  was  in  bed,  and  although  I  had  not  been  to  see  her  for  a  month 
she  received  me  in  a  very  friendly  way.  I  like  her  very  much;  she 
is  not  sensitive  and  I  think  she  is  a  good  friend.  ...  As  I  am 
certain  she  will  finish  by  getting  married  again,  I  believe  for  her  own 
Bake  it  would  be  better  for  her  to  marry  de  Coigne  than  any  one  else. 
He  is  a  man,  refined  and  honest,  and  I  am  sure  gratitude  for  her 
kindness  will  make  him  exert  himself  to  the  utmost  to  render  her 


II 


102  OLD  FAMJLIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 


happy.  She  receives  him  with  distinction  and  he  goes  there  often. 
Yesterday  he  spent  four  hours  there  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  on  her 
recovery  the  affair  will  be  carried  through  at  once. 

"3d  October. — I  am  putting  the  finishing  touches  to  my  houses  on 
the  corner  near  the  Government  House  (Toulouse  Street  and  the 
levee),  and  the  two  will  be  finished  and  ready  to  sell  at  the  end  of  the 
week.  I  am  sure  I  shall  be  able  to  sell  them  before  my  departure  if 
they  are  finished. 

"We  have  not  seen  anj^thing  of  the  Baron  for  five  or  six  days. 
His  family  is  with  Madame  Riviere,  on  the  other  side  of  the  river, 
with  Madame  Macarty.  I  crossed  over  yesterday  morning  with 
la  Baronne,  who  had  come  over  to  hear  mass.  She  told  me  that  the 
doctors  did  not  understand  anything  about  the  Baron's  pains  in 
his  jaws  and  ears  and  that  he  had  decided  to  take  the  tisane  of  Dr. 
Ramos.  Without  doubt,  it  is  not  to  interrupt  the  treatment  that 
the  ladies  have  decided  to  remain  on  the  other  side  of  the  river. 
The  Baronne  complains  continually  of  trouble  with  her  breathing 
and  heaviness  in  her  head :  Madame  de  Riviere,  of  general  pains  all 
over.  She  is  totally  changed;  not  only  has  she  lost  her  color  but  she 
is  distressingly  thin.  She  is  terribly  afraid  of  dying  and  is  getting 
ready  to  leave  for  Bordeaux,  even  at  the  risk  of  being  a  suspect. 

"6th  October. — .  .  .  Marigny  thinks  that  because  I  am  going 
away  I  should  let  him  have  my  slaves  for  nothing  .  .  .  For  a 
long  while  he  has  been  asking  me  for  Baptiste;  but  at  last,  as  he 
talked  no  more  about  it,  I  sold  him  to  Sigu  and  then  he  reproached 
me.  Sigu,  seeing  that  I  did  not  leave,  asked  me  either  to  give  him 
Baptiste  at  once  or  to  break  the  trade.  Thinking  of  Marigny  I 
broke  the  trade;  then  Marigny  offered  me  four  hundred  dollars, 
although  I  had  broken  a  trade  on  his  account  by  which  I  could  have 
sold  for  five  hundred.  A  few  days  ago  Fortier  offered  me  five 
hundred  if  I  would  deliver  the  slave  at  once,  and  I  asked  twenty-four 
hours  to  think  about  it.  I  did  this  on  account  of  Bernard  (de 
Marigny),  who  had  begged  me  fifteen  days  ago  to  keep  Baptiste  for 
him.  I  asked  Marigny  in  the  evening  if  he  had  decided  to  taka 
Baptiste;  again  he  asked  me  the  price.  'Five  hundred.'  'Oh!  that  is 
too  dear!  I  am  buying  him  for  Bernard  with  his  own  money,  and 
you  must  be  considerate.'  *I  am  giving  you  the  preference:  five 
hundred  dollars  are  waiting  for  me  elsewhere.'  'Oh  well!  Give  me 
two  days  to  think  about  it.'  'Willingly.'  I  went  to  see  him  this 
morning.     'Well,  what  have  you  decided?'    'Oh,  Bernard  cannot 


DE  PONT  ALBA  103 

spend  so  much  money  as  that.  He  must  renounce  the  idea.'  Think- 
ing myself  at  Hberty  to  do  so,  I  left  him  at  once  to  go  and  close  with 
Fortier.    And  now  Marigny  is  very  much  ofifended! 

''7th  October. — .  .  .  The  sickness,  that  seemed  to  be  disap- 
pearing, is  giving  us  new  anxiety.  The  English  who  have  not  left 
the  city  are,  of  course,  the  victims;  a  second  demoiselle  Fuselier  has 
just  died  and  one  of  her  brothers  is  very  ill.  The  whole  house  of  that 
poor  Delory  is  in  the  most  pitiable  condition :  four  of  his  daughters 
are  in  danger.  M.  le  Baron  has  at  last  given  in  to  the  solicitation 
of  the  ladies  to  remain  on  the  other  side  of  the  river.  I  go  over  very 
often  to  play  cards  with  them.    .    .    . 

''9ih  October. — .  .  .  A  great  crowd  of  us  to-day  were  at  the 
Macarty's.  I  took  de  Coigne  with  me.  We  are  all  at  our  ease  there 
and  we  can  do  what  we  please .  the  Baron  himself  is  quite  different 
there;  he  takes  part  in  all  the  frolics  and  he  even  appears  to  be 
amused.  He  seems  to  have  left  behind  him,  in  the  city,  all  the 
responsibility  of  his  official  position — to  be  only  a  man  of  society, 
and  an  amiable  man  of  society. 

"The  ladies  come  even  into  our  rooms  to  play  their  pranks  on 
us.  .  .  .  They  make  a  racket  all  night  at  our  doors,  but  I  am  deaf 
to  all  their  wild  noise.  They  needed  to  get  to  the  country.  In  the 
city  so  much  sickness  had  saddened  them  to  the  point  of  giving  them 
the  blues.  They  now  %von't  hear  any  talk  of  the  epidemic  on  the  other 
bank;  they  have  prohibited  all  news  of  the  kind  and  think  only  of 
amusing  themselves.  This  afternoon  they  all  went  on  horseback  to 
the  Laporte  Crevasse  with  all  their  young  men;  they  ran  races  and 
committed  all  sorts  of  extravagances.  I  am  good  only  to  Usten  to 
their  talk  about  their  wild  foolishness;  I  am  not  gay  enough  to 
participate  in  it. 

"One  of  the  Delery  young  ladies  died  to-day.  Several  others  of 
the  family  are  in  danger.  Doctor  St.  Martial,  attacked  by  the  same 
fever  yesterday,  is  in  a  state  to  cause  great  uneasiness.  Good-night, 
ma  bonne  amie,  good-night.    .    .    . 

^'19lh  October. — Poor  St.  Martial  died  this  morning  after  three 
days  of  illness.  Mademoiselle  Macarty  is  distressed;  he  was  the 
only  physician  in  whom  she  had  any  confidence.  Mademoiselle  de 
Kernion  is  very  low.  There  is  being  distributed  here  a  little  printed 
pamphlet  that  came  from  Spain  which  many  people  are  making  use 
of  to  protect  themselves  against  illness.  It  is  a  receipt  of  Massdeval, 
a  celebrated  physician  of  Charles  HI.    It  has  been  used  often  in  this 


1 


104  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 


contagion  but  without  success.    As  for  the  Baron,  he  is  in  the  hands  tfe 
of  Ramos,  *  whose  tisane  he  has  been  taking  ever  since  he  went  over 
to  the  other  side  of  the  river.    It  is  doing  him  such  immense  good 
that  the  Baronne  has  decided  to  take  it  herself.     She  began  the 
treatment  yesterday  and  Madame  Riviere  said  to-day  that  if  it  did 
the  Baronne  good  she  would  make  use  of  it  herself.    In  truth  it  is  '} 
astonishing  to  see  how  quickly  all  the  Baron's  ailments  disappeared 
from  him.    He  suffered  intolerable  pains  in  his  jaws  and  ears  and 
had  continual  insomnia.     From  the  fourth  day  he  was  relieved  \ 
and,  at  present,  he  has  completely  recovered  both  sleep  and  appe- 
tite, and  his  pains  are  gone.    So  that  Ramos  is  now  a  wonderful 
man,  and  all  the  ladies  are  praising  him. 

**I  went  yesterday  to  see  Madame  Dreux.  She  asked  about  you 
and  our  aunt.  No  matter  how  much  one  neglects  her,  she  is  always 
the  same;  she  pardons  her  friends  for  all  their  faults  toward  her. 
She  is  made  for  society  and  I  like  to  cultivate  her.  She  seems  to 
receive  de  Coigne  with  pleasure  and  I  predict  that  as  soon  as  her 
health  is  re-established  there  will  be  a  marriage.  Ever  since  he  lost 
hope  of  Mdlle.  E.,  de  Coigne  has  turned  his  eyes  in  her  direction, 
and  I  think  with  success.  D'Aunoy  thinks  he  should  come  to  the 
point  at  once;  however,  I  think  that  under  the  circumstances,  no 
matter  how  de  Coigne  proceeds,  he  will  make  a  success  of  it. 

"We  are  living  in  a  state  of  the  greatest  disquietude  here  and  I 
dare  not  persuade  myself  that  I  have  the  time  to  arrive  in  Spain 
before  the  breaking  out  of  hostihties.  There  is  no  more  talk  of 
*the  line'  (line  between  Spain  and  the  United  States,  fixed  by  the 
treaty)  on  one  side,  and  on  the  other  there  is  every  disposition  to 
evade  the  treaty. 

"Mdlle.  Kernion  died  to-day.  Mme.  Sognac  (Soniat?)  who  was 
completely  recovered,  but  who  had  nursed  the  Mont6gut  child 
through  its  serious  illness,  has  been  attacked  by  the  same  illness 
and  is  in  graver  danger  than  from  her  first  attack.  In  the  midst  of 
all  this  sickness  I  keep  in  good  health.  My  plate  is  never  filled  with 
enough  roast  beef  for  my  breakfast,  and  when  I  take  supper  at 
Madame  Macarty's  one  would  think  it  was  my  only  meal  during 
the  day.  I  ate  this  evening  for  my  supper  a  whole  plateful  of  sorrel, 
taking  out  the  hard-boiled  eggs,  a  side-bone  of  turkey,  some  butter 
beans,  a  lot  of  asparagus,  three  heads  of  lettuce  and  Roquette  in 

*  A  Spanish  physician  famed  in  the  city  for  his  cure  of  yellow 
fever. 


DE  PONTALBA'  105 

salad,  some  quince  preserves,  fritters,  sponge  cake  and  three  rolls, 
and  I  still  had  some  appetite.  Every  day  it  is  the  same.  I  think  it 
is  the  Quiquina  in  bark  which  I  have  received,  and  I  chew  every  day, 
that  gives  me  this  appetite. 

"October  6th. — We  went  this  morning  to  the  mass  and  intern- 
ment of  the  poor  Abb6  (brother  of  the  Baron  de  Carondelet);  his 
brother  is  inconsolable;  and  truly,  this  worthy  ecclesiastic  merits 
the  grief  of  all  who  knew  him.  He  died  with  all  the  tranquility 
and  resignation  of  a  man  who  has  nothing  to  reproach  himself 
with.  Poor  little  Angehto  (the  son  of  Baron  de  Carondelet)  is 
still  very  ill;  his  fever  has  not  yet  abated. 

*' October  7th. — Angehto  is  somewhat  better;  there  seems  a  little 
hope  for  him.  Montegut's  son,  who  was  in  the  greatest  danger, 
is  entirely  recovered.  Our  Bishop  leaves  to-morrow  for  his  diocesan 
visit  to  the  Attakapas,  Opelousas  and  Natchitoches.  On  his  return, 
he  is  to  go  to  Pensacola.  Good-night,  dear  one  whom  I  love  alone, 
and  of  whom  seven  years  of  happiness  have  so  well  taught  me  the 
value! 

"October  8th. — The  son  of  the  Baron  de  Carondelet  goes  from 
bad  to  worse;  the  only  hope  is  in  his  youth.  My  heart  bleeds 
when  I  think  of  the  condition  of  this  unhappy  father!  My  God! 
if  it  should  happen  that  my  son  should  be  exposed  to  a  similar 
danger,  satisfy  Thyself  with  the  sacrifice  of  my  Hfe  and  save  his! 
The  state  of  this  father  and  mother  is  deplorable.  Still  crushed 
by  the  blow  that  took  from  them  the  Abb6,  in  whom  they  had 
found  a  brother,  a  friend  and  a  tender  mentor  for  their  only  son, 
they  have  now  to  tremble  for  the  life  of  this  only  child. 

"October  9th. — Little  Angelito  is  entirely  out  of  danger.  Mon 
aiyiie,  it  is  impossible,  being  a  father,  not  to  be  interested  in  the 
condition  of  this  unhappy  family.  I  saw  the  Baron  this  evening; 
he  is  not  yet  himself;  he  doubts  sometimes  that  it  is  really  true 
that  his  son  has  been  given  back  to  him.  The  death  of  his  brother 
struck  him  so  hard  that  he  could  not  beheve  that  his  son  would 
recover.  His  fever  was  of  the  same  character  as  that  of  the  Abb6. 
Phihpa  has  recovered.  Madame  Riviere  was  of  the  greatest  assist- 
ance to  them;  she  never  left  the  bedside  of  Angehto,  and  she  alone 
had  the  courage  to  make  him  take  the  remedies. 

"October  10th. — I  passed  the  greater  part  of  the  evening  at  the 
Governor's  house;  the  ladies  received  me,  and  I  was  not  surprised 
to  find  them  consoled;  the  almost  certain  idea  that  they  would 
lose    Angehto,  once  banished,  they  felt  a  joy  which  was  indeed 


106  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

a  paliative  of  the  grief  at  having  lost  the  Abb6.  I  saw  the  child, 
he  could  not  be  better.    .    .    . 

"ISth  October. — The  sickness  is  diminishing  a  little  under  the 
fresh  North  wind  that  has  been  blowing  for  two  days;  nevertheless, 
there  are  two  or  three  deaths  every  day.  The  sickness  is  particularly 
fatal  to  unmarried  women.  Mdlle.  Nancy,  that  Enghsh  woman  who 
lived  with  Madame  Oquon  will  not,  they  say,  Hve  through  the  day. 
The  Baron  de  Stephnelt,  the  German  who  brought  a  letter  of 
exchange  to  me,  died  after  two  days.  The  city  is  nearly  deserted; 
my  stores  that  were  all  taken  are  abandoned;  there  are  only  the 
two  on  the  levee  that  are  retained.  More  than  one  hundred  and 
fifty  Enghsh  have  died  in  the  epidemic  and  more  than  three  hundred 
have  gone  away  to  the  country  or  elsewhere.  Clark  was  so  frightened 
when  his  last  clerk  came  to  give  in  his  account  that  he  would  only 
speak  to  him  from  a  distance.  Three  clerks  died  in  his  own  house; 
the  fright  has  given  him  a  little  fever.  His  physicians  are  more 
afraid  of  this  imagination  than  of  the  sickness.  But  with  it  all, 
mon  amie,  I  am  well  and  have  a  good  appetite,  and  I  am  too  busy 
with  my  longing  to  get  to  you  to  give  the  sickness  a  chance  to  get 
hold  of  me.    .    .    . 

"The  Baron  has  completely  recovered  his  health.  He  left  the 
Macarty  plantation  yesterday;  his  wife,  who  continued  taking  the 
tisane  of  Ramos,  finishes  with  it  to-day.  She  will  go  on  with  the 
Sarsaparilla  for  several  days  yet;  she  used  to  have  her  glass  of  it 
brought  into  the  card  parties  by  her  husband,  who  would  exhort  her 
to  take  it.  Madame  Riviere  preaches  the  same  thing  to  her  husband 
but  he  rejects  the  proposition,  and  this  prevents  her  from  taldng  it. 
You  can  imagine  the  fun  all  this  causes,  but  I  find  no  amusement 
in  it;  it  bores  me.  I  am  doing  everything  possible  to  shorten  my 
time  here  but  I  am  continually  thwarted.  My  works  are  going  along 
with  inconceivable  slowness.  Almost  all  the  masons  and  English 
carpenters  are  dead;  the  few  that  are  left  are  run  after  by  everybody 
and  they  are  paid  a  price  beyond  all  reason.  But  in  spite  of  that  do 
not  think  that  I  shall  be  a  day  later  in  getting  to  you  than  planned. 
The  sale  of  my  houses  is  made  and  I  will  leave  the  contracts  to  my 
agent.    .    .    . 

"17th  October. — Every  day,  mon  amie,  I  have  had  to  announce  to 
you  the  sickness  of  some  one;  now  I  can  make  up  by  telling  you  of 
their  recovery,  for  almost  all  are  getting  well.  The  epidemic  does 
not  give  us  any  more  uneasiness.    Marigny  was  attacked  yesterday, 


DE  PONT  ALB  A  107 

and  the  physicians  say  he  is  in  danger,  but  I  believe  it  is  only  to 
give  him  importance.  I  saw  him  yesterday  and  he  was  up,  although 
he  did  have  fits  of  vomiting.    .    .    . 

"22d  October. — Lafon  arrived  a  few  days  ago.  He  had  left  his 
family  all  well  but  he  found  that  his  eldest  son,  a  charming  child  of 
nine,  had  died  two  days  before  his  arrival.  Despau,  whom  you  met 
on  the  plantation,  arrived  yesterday  from  Pointe  Couple,  and  he 
found  that  his  little  daughter  of  eleven  had  died  after  two  or  three 
days  of  illness.    .    .    . 

*'24th  October. — More  bad  news  for  your  poor  friend!  A  vessel 
that  came  in  yesterday  reported  meeting  an  English  frigate  which 
announced  that  Spain  had  declared  war  on  England.  If  that  is  bo, 
my  courage  v/iU  give  out!  And  I  learned  from  the  Baronne  yes- 
terday, under  the  seal  of  the  greatest  secrecy,  that  the  Baron  had  the 
strongest  reasons  for  believing  that  in  three  or  four  months  the 
King  of  Spain  would  publish  a  cedula  to  accord  freedom  to  all  slaves 
io  his  dominion.  If  that  should  happen  in  so  short  a  space  of  time 
we  will  find  ourselves  absolutely  ruined,  for  all  our  creditors  are 
Blave-o"9VTiers  who  under  the  circumstances  will  pay  no  one,  and  the 
greater  number  of  them  will  go  into  bankruptcy.    .    .    . 

*' 25th  October. — Marigny  has  at  last  found  a  way  to  get  something 
out  of  me  at  a  vile  price !  But  his  manner  of  doing  it  gave  me  pleas- 
ure, because  I  very  much  love  his  son  Bernard,  who  is  my  godchild. 
The  child  came  to  beg  me  to  sell  him  Antoine,  my  Uttle  Mulatto  of 
nine,  but  very  large  for  his  age  and  very  robust.  He  told  me  that 
it  was  for  himself  and  that  he  did  not  have  much  money.  I  answered 
that  with  his  godfather  he  would  always  have  enough  and  that  he 
could  take  Antoine  and  give  me  any  price  he  thought  proper. 
'I  will  see  about  it,'  he  said.  Yesterday  I  went  down  below  to 
breakfast  with  them.  After  talking  a  long  time  with  his  father, 
Bernard  came  to  me,  saying,  holding  his  head  down,  'I  have  thought 
of  what  you  said,  godfather,  and  I  thank  you.  I  will  gladly  take 
Antoine  but  I  have  only  one  hundred  and  sixty  dollars.'  'That's  all 
right,  my  friend,  send  and  get  him.  Did  I  not  tell  you  to  make  the 
price  yourself  that  suited  you  and  it  would  be  mine?  You  can  send 
and  take  him  whenever  you  wish.'  He  thanked  me.  His  father  was 
present  during  the  conversation  without  coming  into  it  the  least  in 
the  world.  Now  I  have  only  Julien  left,  whom  I  do  not  wish  to  sell 
unless  his  godfather  (another  slave)  buys  him  to  give  him  his  liberty; 
and  Charles,  whom  I  will  set  free;  Pelagie,  Madeleine,  and  Augustin, 


108  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

whom  I  will  not  sell  for  less  than  their  value,  in  which  case  I  will  hire 
out  Pelagie  and  Madeleine  and  put  Augustin  at  Tremoulet's  (the 
hotel  keeper)  to  learn  how  to  cook.  .  .  .  And  then,  if  slavery  is 
abolished,  I  shall  not  suffer  any  considerable  loss. 

*'28th  October. — I  slept  last  night  at  Macarty's,  where  the  ladies 
were  waiting  to  renew  their  tricks." 

He  describes  how  the  clothes  of  all  the  gentlemen  were  stolen 
during  the  night  so  that  when  they  arose  in  the  morning  they 
could  find  nothing  to  put  on;  trousers,  shoes,  coats — all  had  been 
taken.  Fortunately,  the  ladies  had  all  gone  away,  taking  even 
the  children  with  them.  They  had  locked  all  the  doors  of  the 
places  where  clothing  was  kept,  and  had  taken  even  the  oars  of 
the  skiffs.  The  gentlemen  had  to  breakfast  in  their  shirts  after 
searching  in  vain  from  garret  to  cellar  to  find  someone  to  help 
them.  Finally,  they  decided  to  cross  the  river  to  their  homes  and 
get  clothing  there.  The  sans  culottes  excited  much  laughter  when 
they  arrived  in  the  city. 

"I  arrived  home  at  eleven  o'clock.  Mon  amie,  will  we  never  be 
through  with  sickness?  I  found  de  Coigne  there  with  a  Uttle  fever 
which  has  never  left  him  since  yesterday.  I  think  it  comes  only  from 
a  sUght  cold,  but  I  have  my  fears,  for  a  month  past  there  are  no 
fevers  that  are  not  dangerous.  Good-night,  I  leave  you  to  go  back 
to  him  and  arrange  so  that  he  will  not  need  anything  during  the 
night.    Good-night. 

"29th  October,  8  o'' clock  at  night. — You  know  the  sensibility  of 
your  husband!  Judge  then  what  my  heart  is  suffering!  I  have 
just  closed  the  eyes  of  my  unfortunate  friend,  de  Coigne.  He 
expired  at  half -past  seven  o'clock,  perfectly  conscious  to  the  last 
moment.  Good-night,  I  leave  you  to  go  to  d'Aunoy,  who  has  been 
helping  me  with  him  without  interruption.    .    .    . 

"SOlh  October. — I  cannot  yet  convince  myself  of  the  death  of 
poor  de  Coigne,  although  I  saw  him  expire.  After  rather  a  restless 
night  he  found  himself  better  yesterday  morning;  his  pulse  was 
weak  but  he  was  without  fever.  I  sent  for  Davo,  but  I  could  not 
get  him  until  I  went  for  him  myself.  During  my  short  absence  he 
had  changed  completely.  Davo  found  him  in  danger.  At  one  o'clock 
I  called  in  Montegut  who  was  of  the  same  opinion.  They  prescribed 
the  remedy  of  Massdeval  and  told  me  if  he  did  not  get  better  he 
must  put  his  affairs  in  order.  At  three  o'clock  he  had  an  oppression 
on  his  chest  and  a  difficulty  in  speaking.    Father  Louis  then  came  to 


DE  PONTALBA  109 

administer  the  last  sacraments.  He  still  showed  his  gay,  pleasant 
temper,  and  his  quickness  to  seize  a  chance  to  make  a  witticism. 
He  was  always  smiling  when  speaking  to  me,  but  showed  no  sensi- 
tiveness about  his  condition  or  regret  at  leaving  his  friends. 

"About  six  o'clock  when  he  was  given  the  remedy  he  had  to  take 
every  hour,  'good,'  said  he,  'give  it  to  me.  I  must  die  according  to 
rule.'  At  the  same  time  he  said  to  d'Aunoy  and  to  me,  'Each  one 
in  his  turn.'  At  two  o'clock  he  wanted  to  go  into  the  salon,  and  he 
sat  by  the  fire  there  for  more  than  an  hour.  From  there  he  went 
into  his  room.  He  complained,  touching  his  nose,  that  he  had  lost 
the  sense  of  touch.  'I  do  not  feel  any  longer  what  I  touch;  see  how 
our  poor  machine  goes  to  pieces.'  When  Father  Louis  told  him  that 
the  King  of  Kings  was  coming  to  pay  him  a  visit,  'Oh,  it  is  you  who 
are  bringing  him!'    And  so  on  to  the  end  in  the  same  tone. 

"He  took  everything  that  was  given  him  to  the  last,  when  he 
asked  me  to  send  for  a  little  box  of  papers  he  had  left  with  Clark. 
He  said  he  wanted  them.  I  sent.  A  moment  later  he  asked  if  they 
had  come,  adding  that  he  wished  they  were  there.  He  was  very 
fond  of  Zenon  Trudeau  and  of  his  mother,  but  he  did  not  even 
mention  them,  and  showed  no  sign  of  feeling  about  his  own  fate  or 
about  his  friends.  At  seven  o'clock  he  asked  to  go  into  the  salon 
again.  We  did  not  wish  him  to  do  so  but  he  persisted.  We  supported 
him  to  the  door,  when  he  was  taken  with  convulsions  in  the  arms, 
legs  and  face.  We  had  to  carry  him  back  to  his  bed.  The  convul- 
sions that  were  caused  by  his  weakness  ceased  when  he  lay  down. 
He  continued  to  talk  to  us,  though  with  difficulty,  until  half  past 
seven. 

"He  died  after  a  struggle  of  a  minute.  About  three  o'clock  spots 
of  gangrene  began  to  be  seen  and  after  his  death  he  became  covered 
with  them.  After  giving  my  orders  for  everything  to  be  done,  I 
left  him  to  the  care  of  Jeannette,  Pelagie,  Polidore  and  Charles.  He 
was  buried  this  morning  at  nine  o'clock.  We  could  not  find  anyone 
to  carry  him  to  the  church  or  cemetery.  Banique,  PoUdore  and 
Charles  had  to  do  it. 

"I  understand  nothing  about  this  fatal  sickness;  it  is  a  kind  of 
pestilential  fever.  You  know  well,  mon  amie,  my  love  for  you 
dictates  to  me  all  the  precautions  useful  in  such  a  case.  I  always 
had  camphor  on  me  and  plenty  of  vinegar.  We  have  used  two  demi- 
johns of  vinegar  sprinkling  the  rooms.  I  had  some  qiuitre  voleurs 
('four  thieves  vinegar,'  an  old  Creole  preventive  against  contagion) 


110  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

to  use  on  myself,  and  my  good  cousin  Mannette  provided  me  with 
a  little  sachet  of  camphor  (to  wear) .  The  servants  were  all  sprinkled 
with  vinegar.  I  chewed  constantly  the  quinine  that  I  received  from 
Cadiz.  Ma  bonne  amie,  I  did  it  all  for  your  sake  for  I  was  too  affected 
to  think  of  myself. 

"De  Coigne's  sickness  was  the  same  as  that  of  the  Abbe  de 
Carondelet  and  of  many  others,  but  none  were  carried  away  so 
rapidly  by  it.  I  shall  sleep  again  to-night  at  my  aunt  d'Aunoy's. 
I  have  had  all  the  rooms  aired  and  everything  that  de  Coigne  used 
put  outside  immediately  after  his  death.  I  sent  his  keys  to  the 
Baron  begging  him  not  to  have  any  judicial  expenses;  telUng  him 
that  de  Coigne  had  arrived  here  unprovided,  and  that  all  he  had 
had  been  given  him  by  d'Aunoy  and  me.  We  wanted  all  they  saved 
to  send  to  his  mother  in  Bordeaux.  I  do  not  know  what  the  Baron 
will  do.  All  of  his  effects  sold  would  bring  very  little.  The  most 
solid  thing  de  Coigne  left  was  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  that  I 
gave  him,  which  would  be  very  useful  to  his  mother,  but  which  the 
auditor  would  eat  up  very  quickly  if  we  let  him.  Good-night,  my 
dear,  I  have  need  of  rest.  I  passed  last  night  in  a  state  of  agitation 
that  prevented  my  closing  my  eyes.  I  embrace  you  with  my  whole 
heart,  and  my  good  aunt  and  Tintin. 

"31st  October. — I  could  only  sadden  you  with  my  reflections, 
mon  amie,  and  so  I  will  restrict  myself  to  writing  you  only  a  few 
lines.  I  am  inconceivably  sad  and  I  have  no  one  near  me  in  whom 
I  can  find  consolation.  I  loved  de  Coigne;  he  merited  all  the  senti- 
ment I  had  for  him  and  I  have  had  the  misfortune  to  lose  him  just 
when  I  had  learned  to  know  him  and  was  certain  of  making  him 
my  friend.  I  lost  him  without  having  had  the  time  to  render  to  him 
the  care  that  was  due  him  and  without  ever  being  able  to  hope  that 
we  could  save  him.  .  .  .  The  day  has  been  passed  in  whitewashing 
my  house  with  lime. 

"A  man  named  Viard,  a  Garde  du  Corps'  imigrS,  a  handsome  man 
of  thirty-five,  well-to-do,  a  friend  of  de  Coigne  who  came  here  six 
months  ago,  and  whom  I  saw  very  often,  has  died  also  of  the  same 
disease,  but  after  five  days.  And  that  clerk  of  Tricou's  who  had  the 
quarrel  with  Theodore  died  this  morning.  We  congratulate  ourselves 
from  time  to  time  that  the  epidemic  is  over,  but  it  always  comes  back 
worse  than  ever. 

*'lst  November. — I  am  this  evening  at  Macarty's.  I  crossed  the 
river  at  nightfall  to  sleep  there  after  finishing  my  business  in  the 


DE  PONTALBA  111 

city.  I  think  the  precaution  very  useless,  for  my  poor  friend  did  not 
Uve  long  enough  to  leave  the  germ  of  his  malady  in  my  house. 
To-morrow  I  shall  sleep  at  the  d'Aunoy's,  for  in  spite  of  your  aunt's 
welcome  I  perceive  that  her  fear  is  so  great  that  my  presence  makes 
her  uneasy  for  her  family.  She  takes  the  greatest  precautions.  She 
never  crosses  to  the  other  side  of  the  river  and  never  allows  a  servant 
who  has  done  so  to  come  near  her.  Nevertheless  it  seems  that  the 
sickness  is  diminishing  and  the  physicians  assure  us  that  there  is 
very  little  in  the  city.  I  know  of  only  one  case  at  present — Mile, 
de  Blanc,  the  sister  of  Madame  du  Forest,  who  is  in  great  danger.  I 
shall  not  come  back  here;  your  aunt  is  so  sad,  she  adds  to  my 
melancholy. 

'^2d  November. — M.  Bor^  is  making  fine  sugar,  sirop  and  tafia; 
he  has  that  man  who  was  staying  with  Mendez.  It  is  said  that  he 
will  make  twelve  thousand  dollars  (gourdes)  on  his  crop,  and  for  that 
he  has  only  thirty-five  hands. 

"Piguery,  a  young  man  of  fifteen,  died  after  three  days;  de  Gruy, 
who  is  ill,  seems  to  be  going  the  same  way.  We  hear  that  all  the 
ports  of  North  America  are  quarantining  boats  that  come  from 
Louisiana.  I  am  sleeping  to-night  at  d'Aunoy's.  Your  aunt,  in  her 
care  for  me,  puts  in  my  room  aromatic  herbs,  and  juice  of  wild 
orange,  burns  sugar  in  it  and  scatters  everywhere  little  bags  of 
camphor.  In  short,  she  is  taking  all  precautions  imaginable  to 
escape  the  scourge  which  is  becoming  milder  every  day.  We  hope 
that  the  first  rain  will  put  an  end  to  it.  For  eight  days  we  have  had 
a  heavy  mist,  thick  but  dry,  to  which  the  continuation  of  the 
deathly  fevers  is  attributed. 

"5rd  November. — The  aide-de-camp  of  the  French  General  (CoUot) 
has  just  died,  regretted  by  all  who  knew  him. 

'*4th  November. — This  evening  'Eugenie'  was  given,  followed  by 
a  compliment  to  the  King  and  to  the  Baron.  Minerva  and  Thaha 
appeared  to  recite  a  piece  written  in  a  prose  worthy  of  a  cabaret. 
It  was  almost  all  in  praise  of  the  Baron.  He  was  flattered  in  the  most 
servile  manner  and  in  the  most  tasteless  way  for  a  full  hour  until 
Phelipa,  who  is  very  bright,  grew  impatient  of  the  platitudes  that 
were  being  served  in  it.  Two  hands  were  made  to  appear  clasping 
each  other,  representing  the  King  of  Spain  and  the  French  Repubhc, 
with  the  epigraph :  'Let  us  be  ever  united.'  Not  an  actor  pleased  me. 
Mme.  Durosier  acquitted  herself  very  poorly  in  the  role  of  Eugenie. 
The  little  Boh^mienne  took  it  upon  herself  to  massacre  even  the 


II 

112  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  | 

f 
role  of  'Mile.  Clairette.'    But  the  piece  recalled  precious  memories 
which  are  now  only  regrets. 

"4th  November. — Philips  has  just  died.  He  was  a  young  Parisian 
that  Maxent  brought  with  him  from  Paris.  Mile,  de  la  Chaise  is 
still  between  hfe  and  death.  Her  passing  away  has  been  announced 
ten  times  and  she  always  resurrects;  but  now  only  a  miracle  can  save 
her.  I  am  writing  from  home;  I  had  it  whitewashed  three  days  ago 
and  the  odor  has  all  passed  away. 

"6th  November. — Champigny,  who  has  just  cut  my  hair,  com- 
plained bitterly  of  his  wife  who  had  struck  him  over  the  arm  with 
the  tongs.  He  wants  to  leave  her  and  proposes  to  come  with  me  to 
serve  you  and  your  aunt  as  a  valet.  I  accepted  his  proposition  with 
pleasure;  that  is,  after  he  has  thought  it  over  seriously. 

"Although  the  fevers  are  diminishing  they  are  still  very  fatal. 

"8th  November. — The  dry  North  wind  we  are  having  has  dis- 
sipated the  bad  atmosphere,  and  the  fevers  that  were  so  putrid  and 
malignant  are  no  longer  dangerous. 

"10th  November. — At  last,  mon  amie,  here  we  are  in  full  winter! 
I  think  it  is  going  to  be  a  very  cold  and  rough  one.  Everyone  is 
rejoicing  over  the  cold  that  has  completely  freed  us  from  the  fever. 
My  work  is  beginning  to  lighten.  The  two  houses  alongside  the 
Government  House  with  their  kitchens  are  under  way.  My  terraces 
and  those  of  my  aunt  are  repaired.  Her  houses  are  rented  for  a 
term  of  one  year,  but  not  for  as  high  a  price  as  I  flattered  myself  I 
would  get.  Nevertheless,  the  house  on  the  corner  of  the  levee  will 
bring  a  rent  of  $178.00  a  month  and  the  one  on  the  Place  $118.00. 
No  one  will  rent  the  store  under  the  apartment  of  the  bishop.  That 
one  will  be  a  pure  loss.  My  eleven  stores  are  finished;  five  are  rented; 
no  offer  at  present  for  the  six  others. 

"Adieu,  mon  amie,  I  am  going  to  send  this  packet  to  the  courier; 
there's  not  an  instant  to  lose.  When  you  receive  it  you,  I  believe, 
can  have  the  sure  hope  of  our  reunion  three  months  later.  Good-bye. 
Take  care  of  yourself  and  my  good  aunt  and  Tintin. 

"PONTALBA." 

Resigning  his  position  in  the  Spanish  Army,  he 
left  New  Orleans  in  1797.  His  friend  Carondelet  left 
a  few  months  later  in  the  same  year  for  his  new 
post  of  Quito.  Madame  de  Pontalba,  with  her  son 
and  Madame  Miro,  joined  her  husband  in  Paris. 


DE  PONT  ALB  A  113 

While  living  there  he  wrote  a  full  Memoir  on 
Louisiana  to  be  submitted  to  Napoleon.  Bernard  de 
Marigny,  de  Pontalba's  godson,  who  was  in  Europe 
and  presumably  in  Paris  at  the  time,  gives  his 
personal  coloring  to  the  usual  bare  statement  of  the 
fact.  He  declares  that  Napoleon,  being  aware  that 
a  Louisianian  of  high  intelligence,  Joseph  Delfau  de 
Pontalba,  was  in  Paris,  thought  proper  to  consult 
him  as  to  the  advantages  and  resources  Louisiana 
might  offer  to  France. 

De  Pontalba's  paper  is  pronounced  a  masterly 
production  by  the  best  of  judges,  Charles  Gayarr^. 
Its  wonderful  clearness  of  political  insight,  and  the 
complete  knowledge  exhibited  in  it  of  the  condition 
of  the  province  in  its  relation  to  Spain  and  the 
United  States,  had  seemingly  a  convincing  effect 
on  the  mind  of  the  First  Consul.  It  was  presented 
to  him  on  the  15th  of  September,  and  fifteen  days 
later  the  Treaty  of  St.  Ildefonso  was  concluded,  by 
which  Louisiana  was  retroceded  by  Spain  to  France. 

A  careful  reading  of  the  paper  to-day  warrants 
the  inference  that  its  effect  may  have  been  still 
further  influenced  in  predisposing  Napoleon's  mind 
in  favor  of  the  ultimate  cession  of  the  province  to 
the  United  States.  Marigny,  in  his  later  paper, 
''Reflections  Politiques,"  clearly  indicates  this. 
The  following  extract  is  a  good  example  of  de 
Pontalba's  judicial  tone  toward  the  revolution 
against  Ulloa  and  the  subsequent  surprising  result 
of  the  Spanish  domination  in  gaining  the  hearts  of 
the  Creoles,  and,  as  in  de  Pontalba's  case,  the 
loyal  services  of  the  French  officers. 

"After  having  granted  to  Louisiana  all  that  might  be  in  her  power, 
France  would,  in  the  event  of  talcing  possession  again  of  it,  still 


114  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

have  done  nothing  for  her  if  she  did  not  give  her  as  Governor  an 
honest,  frank,  just  and  good  man  who,  by  his  conciUating  temper, 
would  gain  the  affection  of  the  inhabitants.  They  are  of  a  mild, 
sensitive  and  remarkably  grateful  temper.  The  statement  of  one 
fact  alone  will  be  sufficient  to  show  how  much  I  ought  to  insist  upon 
this  point.  After  having  done  in  order  to  remain  French  more  than 
it  was  then  permitted  to  subjects  to  do,  after  having  seen  the 
sohcitations  of  their  delegates  rejected  by  the  court  of  France,  the 
inhabitants  of  Louisiana,  after  having  deliberated  among  themselves, 
came  to  the  resolution  of  relying  on  nothing  else  than  their  courage, 
which  was  the  sole  resource  remaining  to  them.  The  result  was  the 
expulsion  of  Ulloa. 

"O'Reilly  arrived  with  an  army.  He  had  caused  himself  to  be 
preceded  by  words  of  peace,  indulgence,  and  f  orgetfulness  oi  tne  past. 
The  colonists  abandoned  by  the  mother  country  thought  that  they 
were  no  longer  bound  to  nurse  and  preserve  for  her  the  love  which 
she  rejected.  They  gave  themselves  up  to  the  hope  of  an  endurable 
condition  under  a  new  master  and  received  him  without  resistance. 
O'Reilly's  conduct  is  but  too  well  known.  It  exasperated  every 
heart  and  caused  the  new  domination  to  be  abhorred. 

"The  Count  of  Galvez  made  his  appearance  and  inspired  the 
pubUc  with  confidence;  for  he  was  distinguished  for  the  affabihty  of 
his  manners,  the  sweetness  of  his  temper,  the  frankness  of  his 
character,  the  kindness  of  his  heart  and  bis  love  of  justice.  Receiving 
in  1779  the  news  of  the  declaration  of  war  against  the  English,  he 
convened  the  colonists  around  him.  'Let  them  who  love  me  follow 
where  I  lead*  said  he;  and  the  next  day  fifteen  hundred  Creoles, 
among  them  many  heads  of  families,  gathered  round  him,  and  were 
ready  to  march  to  the  enemy." 

On  the  3d  of  October,  1802,  Pontalba  presented  a 
petition  to  the  First  Consul,  stating  that  he,  Joseph 
Xavier  Delfau  de  Pontalba,  one  of  the  principal 
proprieteurs  of  Louisiana,  where  he  was  born,  had 
renounced  his  rank  in  the  army  of  Spain,  and  that 
the  transfer  of  some  of  his  fortune  to  France  showed 
his  desire  of  becoming  a  French  citizen  once  more, 
and  proving  his  devotion  to  France.  He  stated  that 
he  has  given  the  Minister  some  notes  on  the  relation 


DE  PONT  ALB  A  115 

of  the  United  States  to  Louisiana,  and  on  the  colony 
in  general,  which  the  Minister  had  found  of  use;  he 
asks,  therefore,  that  his  previous  service  in  the 
French  Army  also  be  taken  into  consideration  and 
that  he  be  appointed  Adjutant-General  without 
pay  in  the  French  Army;  asking  only  the  honor  to 
serve  the  French  Republic.  This  is  annotated  by 
General  Victor:  ''Colonel  Pontalba  had  given  val- 
uable notes  on  Louisiana." 

The  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  makes  a  report 
upon  the  petition  that  Pontalba,  having  renounced 
service  with  Spain,  would  be  very  useful  to  France 
in  the  newly-acquired  colony;  that  he  had  furnished 
an  interesting  Memoir  and  asked  the  grade  of 
Adjutant-General  without  pay.  Decres  annotates 
it:  ''This  has  been  presented  to  the  First  Consul, 
who  has  commanded  that  a  prepared  conmaission  be 
presented  to  him."  Decres  soon  after  sends  him  the 
commission  with  the  intimation  that  it  is  accorded, 
with  the  hope  that  he  will  cooperate  with  the  new 
Captain-General  (Victor)  and  Prefect  toward  the 
prosperity  of  the  colony  of  which  France  takes  pos- 
session, and  which  she  wishes  to  see  flourish. 

But  neither  General  Victor  nor  Pontalba  came  to 
New  Orleans.  In  1807,  de  Pontalba  bought  the 
magnificent  chateau  of  Mont  FEveque  (dep.  Oise) 
where  he  enjoyed,  as  he  had  often  declared  in  his 
letters  to  his  wife,  what  would  constitute  the  reaUza- 
tion  of  his  highest  ideal  of  human  felicity — a  life 
passed  in  the  family  circle  with  her,  his  son  and  their 
good  aunt,  Madame  Miro. 

Here  the  little  boy  Tintin  (Celestin  de  Pontalba) 
grew  to  young  manhood.  When  still  a  boy,  in  1804, 
he  had  been  made  a  page  of  the  Emperor.    Five 


116  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  '] 

I 
years  later,  when  but  nineteen,  he  was  given  the  » 
grade  of  Sous-Lieutenant  of  a  regiment  of  Chasseurs  i\ 
a  cheval,  at  the  request  of  Marshal  Ney,  Due  | 
d'Elchingen,  who  states  to  the  Minister  of  War ', 
that  the  young  man  was  related  to  his  wife;  that  he  i 
was  a  youth  in  whom  he  took  the  greatest  interest,  ' 
and  whom  he  desired  to  attach  to  himself  later  as 
aide-de-camp.  In  1811,  Ney  writes  further  to  the 
Minister  of  War  that  the  young  de  Pontalba  had  , 
served  under  him  at  the  siege  of  Ciudad  Rodrigo  •? 
and  Almeyda,  had  made  the  campaign  of  Portugal,  ,1 
just  terminated,  and  had  shown  himself  brave,  ' 
zealous  and  active  in  service,  asking  as  a  particu- 
lar favor  that  he  be  promoted  as  aide-de-camp.  [ 
Napoleon  himself  countersigns  the  order  for  the  if 
promotion.  [ 

The  next  official  paper  in  the  '^Dossier  Pontalba' ' 
grants  a  leave  of  absence  for  six  months  that  the  [ 
young  Sous-Lieutenant  may  go  to  New  Orleans  to  f 
contract   a   marriage.     De   Pontalba   was   accom- 
panied to  New  Orleans  by  his  mother. 

The  marriage  figured  for  over  a  century  in  New 
Orleans'  social  traditions  as  the  most  important 
one  ever  contracted  in  Louisiana.  According  to  the 
standards  of  the  time,  a  standard  fixed  by  the 
parents  and  not  by  the  children,  it  was  a  perfect 
one,  uniting  as  it  did  the  only  son  and  heir  of  the 
rich  and  distinguished  Baron  de  Pontalba,  with 
the  only  daughter  and  heiress  of  the  wealthy  Don 
Andres  Almonaster,  the  famous  benefactor  of  the 
city;  the  donor  of  the  Cathedral,  a  schoolhouse,  a 
hospital,  a  chapel,  and  the  builder  of  the  Cabildo; 
also  a  Chevalier  of  the  noble  and  royal  Order  of 
Charles  III,  and  the  standard  bearer  (Alfarez  Real) 


DE  PONT  ALBA  117 

of  the  Royal  and  Illustrious  Municipality  of  New 
Orleans,  to  quote  from  the  Spanish  register  in  the 
Cathedral. 

Don  Andres  had  died  in  1798,  leaving  a  great 
fortune  to  his  wife  and  two  daughters,  Andrea  and 
Micaela.  Andrea  survived  her  father  only  a  short 
time,  and  her  share  of  the  estate  went  to  increase 
the  portions  of  her  mother  and  sister.  Micaela, 
sixteen  at  the  time  of  her  marriage,  had  been 
educated  in  the  Ursuline  Convent,  and  had  never 
seen  the  world  outside  her  native  city  and  her 
mother's  circle  in  society.  She  was  not  good 
looking,  but  had  intelligence.  She  had  been  asked 
in  marriage  (the  fate  of  heiresses)  by  every  bachelor 
in  the  community,  but  her  worldly-wise  mother,  the 
pettish  ^'Louison"  of  the  Pontalba  letters,  had  other 
views  in  her  head  and  was  deaf,  it  is  said,  to  the 
prayers  of  even  her  daughter,  who  had  given  her 
heart  in  an  unworldly-wise  manner  to  an  impe- 
cunious youth. 

Madame  Almonaster  wrote  cheerfully  to  the  Baron 
de  Pontalba  in  a  letter  (written  according  to  the 
standard  of  the  day) : 

"My  daughter  has  no  inclination  for  any  one;  she  wishes  to  see 
her  cousin;  she  says,  'What  a  pity  if  such  a  pretty  marriage  should 
fail!'    They  seem  to  be  made  one  for  the  other."    .    .    , 

As  for  the  young  groom  of  twenty,  nothing  is 
known  of  him  beyond  his  official  record  already 
quoted.  According  to  his  portrait,  he  was  a  re- 
markably handsome  young  officer  in  his  uniform  of 
the  Chasseurs;  his  face,  too  soft  and  pretty,  was 
indeed  the  face  of  a  petted  only  son,  who  had  been 
fed  through  childhood  and  youth  on  tender  smiles 


118  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

and  words  of  endearment.  It  was  a  great  contrast 
to  that  of  his  stern,  strong  father,  the  Indian  fighter 
and  sturdy  soldier  of  Bienville,  the  shrewd  business 
man,  that  we  know  in  New  Orleans. 

Dispensation  was  obtained  for  the  degree  of  con- 
sanguinity, and  in  order  to  hasten  the  affair  for 
the  publication  of  the  usual  number  of  banns.  To 
quote  the  account  at  the  time,  the  young  couple  set 
out  from  the  altar  to  France,  accompanied  by  the 
two  mothers.  The  Baron  awaited  them  in  Mont 
TEveque. 

The  next  document  concerning  him  comes  not 
from  the  ''Archives  de  la  Marine,  Dossier  Pontalba," 
but  from  the  ''Procedure  de  M.  le  Mar^chal  Ney, 
par  devant  le  Conseil  de  Guerre.'^  Among  the 
effects  of  the  Marshal  seized  at  the  time  of  his 
arrest  was  found  the  following  letter: 

"Paris,  11th  of  July,  1815. 
"Monsieur  le  Mar6chal, 

"It  seems  to  me  that,  in  the  event  of  your  deciding  to  leave 
France,  you  would  give  the  preference  to  Louisiana  over  other  partg 
of  the  United  States;  that  colony  would,  in  truth,  offer  you  more 
agreeable  inducements  than  the  Eastern  parts.  You  would  find  in 
the  manners,  character,  and  language  of  the  people,  formerly  French, 
a  way  of  living  more  conformed  to  your  own.  Life  there  is  not  only 
much  less  expensive  than  in  New  York,  but  it  is  much  more  in  accord- 
ance with  our  habits.  The  one  reason  to  be  alleged  against  that  part 
of  America  is  the  sickness  that  often  reigns  in  New  Orleans,  during 
the  months  of  7bre  and  8bre.  But  it  does  not  extend  outside  the 
city.  One  is  not  attacked  by  it  in  the  country;  therefore  all  men  of 
means  retire  to  it  at  that  period,  and  nothing  retaining  you  in  the 
city  you  could  easily  seek  shelter  from  the  danger.  You  would  find 
among  my  relatives  and  friends  in  Louisiana,  a  welcome  even  more 
cordial  than  is  bespoken  in  the  letters  I  enclose  to  you.  .  .  . 
When  you  enter  the  Mississippi  River,  you  will  have  to  ascend  it 
for  thirty-six  leagues.  The  Captain  forwards  the  mail  to  the  city, 
from  the  mouth  of  the  river,  by  a  skiff.    Therefore  by  sending  to 


DE  PONTALBA  119 

Marigny  the  letter  I  addressed  to  him  you  can  count  upon  finding 
him  at  the  landing  to  meet  you. 

"Make  use  of  me,  M.  lo  Mardchal,  and  count  upon  it  that  on  all 
occasions  you  will  find  in  me  the  same  devotion  that  I  have  never 
ceased  to  show  you." 

Pontalba's  letters  to  Marigny  and  others  in  New 
Orleans  have  already  been  quoted.  But  New 
Orleans  was  not  to  have  the  honor  of  receiving, 
nor  the  people  of  New  Orleans  of  entertaining,  in 
their  hospitable  manner  the  noble  and  distinguished 
Marshal.  He  was,  as  we  know,  executed  in  the 
gardens  of  the  Luxembourg  five  months  after  de 
Pontalba's  letter,  written,  one  cannot  avoid  the 
surmise,  not  only  to  give  an  invitation,  but  also  to 
convey  an  intimation  in  the  way  of  advice;  and, 
involuntarily,  another  surmise  arises  in  the  mind  of 
a  New  Orleanian,  that  de  Pontalba  may  have 
ventured  still  further  and  may  have  suggested  the 
rescue  of  Napoleon  from  St.  Helena.  It  was  pro- 
posed, according  to  a  faithful  chronicle  in  the  city, 
to  convey  him  in  a  swift-sailing  vessel  to  New 
Orleans,  where  a  house  was  built  for  him — a  stately 
mansion  that  is  still  standing  awaiting  its  imperial 
guest  to-day  as  in  1815.  The  Battle  of  New  Orleans 
and  glorious  defeat  of  the  British  had  given  the 
city  no  inconsiderable  fame  in  1815;  and  the  gather- 
ing in  the  city  of  a  distinguished  band  of  old  warriors 
from  the  Napoleonic  army  may  have  seemed  to  de 
Pontalba  an  opportunity  for  escape  and  safety  that 
the  Emperor  would  have  been  wise  to  seize. 

Two  years  after  his  marriage,  Celestin  de 
Pontalba's  resignation  was  accepted  and  he  was 
freed  from  all  military  service  and  permitted  to 
retire  to  his  home  in  the  magnificent  estate  of  Mont 


120  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

TEveque,  where  lived  also  his  father,  mother  andi 
aunts,  Madame  Miro  and  Mademoiselle  Macarty. 

During  the  early  years  of  the  marriage  three  sons 
were  born:  Celestin,  Alfred  and  Gaston.  Madame 
Almonaster  re-married  soon  after  and  died  in  1827. 
Her  fortune  went  to  her  daughter,  Micaela.  Young 
and  immensely  wealthy,  even  according  to  the 
standards  of  Paris,  Micaela  was  not  unnaturally 
tempted  to  enjoy  her  advantages  according  to  the 
tastes  of  Paris.  She  bought  a  magnificent  hotel  and 
furnished  it  in  a  splendid  way,  and  gave  entertain- 
ments which  even  the  haughty  and  aristocratic 
society  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain  attended. 

The  Baron  made  over  to  his  son  the  chateau  of 
Mont  I'Eveque  (whose  garden  was  the  finest  in 
France)  and  the  family,  including  always  Madame 
Miro  and  her  sister,  Mademoiselle  Macarty,  retired 
to  a  new  home  bought  in  the  outskirts  of  Senlis. 

But  Micaela  cared  not  for  the  country.  When  she 
paid  unavoidable  visits  to  the  stately  chateau  of 
Mont  TEveque,  she  carried  with  her  a  princely 
retinue  of  servants,  and  generally  a  cortege  of 
fashionable  friends  and  the  leading  actors  of  the 
great  companies.  She  built  a  theatre  in  her  grounds 
and  acted  in  it  herself.  In  short  the  Creole  heiress 
followed  the  beaten  path  of  her  kind,  in  life  as  in 
fiction.  The  story  is  a  commonplace  one.  Her 
husband  cared  only  for  the  quiet  pleasures  of 
domestic  life.  His  father,  mother,  aunts,  children 
and  wife  constituted  his  world.  The  brilliant  round 
of  Paris  pleasures  grew  distasteful;  the  extravagant 
expenditure  of  money  abhorrent. 

Estrangement  between  husband  and  wife  fol- 
lowed and  practical  separation.    In  short,  what  had 


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DE  PONT  ALB  A  123 

constituted  in  wordly  eyes  the  perfection  of  the  union 
became  its  destruction,  twenty  years  after  its  con- 
summation. From  its  beginning  the  contract  drawn 
with  so  much  business  sagacity  became  a  casus  belli. 
Lawsuits  ensued — the  veil  of  family  secrecy  was  rent 
in  twain,  because,  in  truth,  the  one  thing  needful, 
in  marriage,  which  the  contract  had  ignored,  was 
lacking. 

Micaela  made  a  dash  to  Louisiana  in  1831  to 
secure  the  succession  of  her  mother  and,  if  possible, 
a  divorce  from  her  husband;  but  a  timely  interven- 
tion from  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  Sebastiani, 
frustrated  this  last.  She  returned  by  way  of  the 
great  cities  of  the  North  and  the  Falls  of  Niagara, 
describing  them  to  her  aunt,  Madame  de  Chalmette, 
in  letters  written  with  all  the  exuberance  of  a  strong, 
original  mind.  On  her  return  to  Paris  she  obtained 
her  independence  of  her  husband  and  his  family. 

The  culmination  of  the  greatest  Louisiana  matri- 
monial union  was  a  tragedy,  that  has  bowed  the 
fine  old  name  of  Pontalba  under  a  veil  of  crape. 
It  is  a  family  secret  of  New  Orleans,  guarded  with 
filial  piety;  the  details  are  imparted  by  those  who 
know  them  under  the  seal  of  personal  confidence; 
the  ghastly  truth  only  is  acknowledged,  which  is — 
that  at  Mont  I'Eveque,  on  an  October  morning  in 
1834,  Madame  de  Pontalba  was  discovered  on  the 
floor  of  her  apartment,  weltering  in  her  blood, 
and  apparently  in  a  dying  condition,  her  body  torn 
with  pistol  shots.  The  old  Baron  was  found  dead, 
sitting  upright  in  a  great  armchair  in  his  apartment, 
a  pistol  in  his  hand! 

Thus,  in  a  moment  of  insanity,  in  his  eightieth 
year,  passed  away  the  fine  soldier  of  Bienville,  the 


124  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

dashing  Indian  fighter,  the  noble  aristocrat,  the 
devoted  husband,  the  too-doting  father,  the  writer 
of  charming  letters,  the  author  of  the  masterly 
''Memoir  of  Louisiana !'' 

By  a  miracle,  Madame  de  Pontalba  recovered,    jl 
carrying  to  her  death  the  bullets  in  her  body  and    | 
maintaining  to  the  end  the  prestige  of  her  wealth, 
position,  and  indomitable  will.       Still  frequenting 
and  frequented  by  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain,  she 
escaped  none  of  the  horror  and  excitement  that    ! 
filled  the  minds  of  the  Ancien  Regime,  when  it    ' 
became  rumored  that  the  beautiful  palace  built  by 
Louis  XIV  for  the  Due  de  Maine,  on  the  rue  de 
Lille,  was  to  be  bought  by  the  ^'Bande  Noire"  and    | 
razed  to  the  ground — the  site  to  be  filled  with    f 
smaller  buildings.    With  her  Louisiana  millions  she 
bought  the  palace  herself,  and  even  attempted,  with 
the  vaulting  pride  of  woman,  to  live  in  it.     Only    ■ 
royal  wealth  and  attendance  could,  however,  properly 
fill  the  place — four  hundred  rooms  it  contained,  so 
the  new  proprietor,  submitting,  as  even  royal  per- 
sonages  must,    to   circumstances,    demolished   the 
palace  herself,  but  reserved  all  its  artistic  wealth 
of  carvings,  columns,  ornaments  and  marbles   for 
the  new  hotel  she  built;  a  hotel  of  magnificent  state 
but  more  in  proportion  to  her  position  and  means. 
It  was  sold  afterwards  for  five  million  francs  to  one 
of  the  Rothschilds. 

Celestin  de  Pontalba  came  but  once  to  New 
Orleans,  on  a  business  visit.  His  mother  came  twice, 
once  as  we  have  seen  before  the  tragedy  in  1831,  and 
once  later,  when  she  received  a  warm  welcome  from 


DE  PONTALBA  125 

her  friends  and  relatives;  ardent  sympathizers  in  her 
griefs  and  misfortunes.* 

Finding  her  native  city  in  full  tide  of  prosperity 
and  architectural  development,  she  was  too  much 
the  daughter  of  her  father  not  to  want  to  connect 
her  name  with  that  of  New  Orleans.  In  1846, 
through  her  agent,  she  communicated  to  the  Council 
of  the  IMunicipality  her  desire  to  aid  in  the  embellish- 
ment of  her  native  city,  proposing  to  demolish  the 
two  rows  of  buildings  fronting  on  the  Place  d'Armes 
from  Chartres  and  Cond6  (lower  Chartres)  Streets 
to  the  levee,  and  to  replace  these  buildings  by  edifices 
according  to  a  plan  submitted  to  the  Council. 
But  with  an  astuteness  worthy  of  her  father,  she 
would  consent  to  carry  out  the  project  only  if 
seconded  by  the  Council,  making  the  request  that 
the  new  edifices  be  exempt  from  city  taxation  for 
twenty  years  from  the  date  of  their  completion.  The 
Council  consented,  providing  that  the  entire  front 
of  said  structures,  in  St.  Peter's  and  St.  Anne  Streets, 
should  be  finished  in  all  particulars  according  to  the 
plans  furnished. 

In  1849,  Madame  de  Pontalba  communicated  to 
the  Council  that,  relying  upon  their  resolution,  she 
had  contracted  for  the  demolition  and  reconstruc- 
tion proposed;  the  Council,  on  the  excuse  of  some 
flaw  in  the  contract,  claimed  that  they  were  without 
authority  to  grant  her  the  exemption  asked  for. 
Notwithstanding  this,  with  characteristic  energy,  she 
persisted  in  her  filial  and  patriotic  purpose.  Her 
plans  grew  in  beauty  and  grandeur  and  finally  found 

•  "Jackson  Square,"  Henry  Renshaw,  Louisiana  Historical  So- 
ciety.    Quarterly,  Vol.  II,  No.  1. 


126  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

consummation  in  the  stately  rows  of  buildings  that 
stand  on  the  northern  and  southern  sides  of  the 
Place  d'Armes.  They  were  finished  in  1850  and  from 
the  standpoint  of  to-day,  even  with  the  wear  and 
tear  of  three-quarters  of  a  century,  to  quote  from  the 
last  pretty  compliment  paid  them:  ^They  are  fair 
to  look  upon  and  they  arouse  admiration  by  their 
noble  proportions,  their  spacious  verandas  and 
elegance  of  the  tendril-like  iron  work,  which  displays 
the  interlaced  initials  of  the  families  of  Almonaster 
and  Pontalba." 

All  guides  of  New  Orleans  relate  with  proud 
pleasure  that  the  central  house  of  the  row  was 
finished  in  time  to  be  furnished  and  offered  to  Jenny 
Lind  as  a  residence  when  she  came  to  the  city  in 
1850.  The  celebrated  chef  and  culinary  authority 
of  the  time,  Boudro,  was  engaged  for  the  cuisine;  it 
is  also  said  that  the  Diva  ever  afterwards,  in  speaking 
of  her  visit  to  the  city,  mentioned  him  as  the  greatest 
attraction  she  had  found  in  it.  But  the  houses  were 
entirely  out  of  keeping  with  their  old  setting  of  the 
Place  d'Armes,  which  still  retained  its  rustic  ap- 
pearance of  a  village  muster  green,  with  grass-grown 
spaces  enclosed  within  a  dilapidated  iron  raihng.  Its 
only  beauty  consisted  of  its  double  avenue  of  old 
sycamores,  the  favorite  promenade  and  the  delight 
of  the  old  citizens,  who  were  fond  of  passing  the 
summer  afternoons  under  their  shade,  while  enjoying 
the  fresh  breezes  from  the  river. 

It  was  from  the  Square  that  the  evening  gun  was 
fired  which  gave  the  signal  for  slaves  to  retire  from 
the  streets;  here  it  was  that  O'Reilly  had  proclaimed 
the  sovereignty  of  Spain,  and  Laussat  later  the 
domination  of  the  French   Republic.    And  grass 


DE  PONT  ALB  A  127 

grown  and  shabby  as  it  was,  more  gloriously  still 
it  was  the  scene  of  the  cession  of  Louisiana  to  the 
United  States.  From  its  flagstaff,  the  fleur-de-lis 
the  banner  of  Spain,  the  tricolor,  had  all  risen  in 
temporary  sovereignty,  until  the  flag  of  the  United 
States  arose  and  spread  its  folds  to  the  wind,  in  sign 
of  proud,  permanent  possession. 

General  Jackson  passed  in  triumph  through  it  to 
the  Cathedral  after  his  glorious  victory  of  Chalmette. 
Nevertheless  it  had  to  submit  to  the  spirit  (the 
ruthless  spirit,  as  it  seems)  of  improvement.  Its 
venerable  sycamores  were  felled,  despite  the  agonized 
protests  of  the  citizens;  its  rough  greensward  was 
laid  off  in  parterres.  A  flower  garden  was  made  of 
it,  and  a  clean  sweep  (as  it  were)  was  made  of  its  old 
memories  and  traditions,  by  changing  its  name  and 
consecrating  it  to  the  memory  of  the  hero  of 
Chalmette. 

When  Madame  de  Pontalba  left  New  Orleans  in 
1851,  she  carried  with  her  the  consciousness  of  having 
left,  even  as  her  father  had  done,  an  enduring  mark 
upon  her  native  city.  In  addition  to  a  considerable 
contribution  to  the  erection  of  the  monument  to 
Jackson,  for  whom  she  had  an  enthusiastic  admira- 
tion, she  had  furnished  a  suitable  site  for  it  (a  nobler 
one  could  not  have  been  found  in  the  United  States), 
and  she  had  added  grandly  to  her  father's  benefac- 
tions— the  Cathedral,  the  Cabildo  and  the  Presby- 
tere,  by  giving  them  noble  and  worthy  surroundings, 
assuring  beyond  peradventure  against  the  neglect 
and  decay  that  have  degraded  many  an  historic  and 
ecclesiastic  center  in  Europe.  For  a  half  century 
the  Pontalba  buildings  furnished  the  dwelHngs  of 
the  most  exclusive  famihes  in  the  city.     Jackson 


128  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Square  still  reigns,  the  center  of  all  civic,  social  and 
ecclesiastical  functions  of  ceremony;  the  noble 
monument  in  its  center,  far  from  excluding,  seems 
courteously  to  salute  the  old  traditions  and  memories 
which  seem  to  follow  the  great  General  as  he  guides 
his  charger  toward  the  Cathedral  portal. 

Micaela  returned  to  her  Ufe  in  Paris  and  reigned 
there  in  a  kind  of  exotic  supremacy;  giving  her 
great  entertainments  and  welcoming  to  them  right 
cordially  friends  and  relatives  from  her  native 
place. 

Charles  Gayarre,*  a  kinsman  and  friend,  used  to 
relate  that  in  1837  he  once  had  taken  dinner  with 
her  on  the  evening  of  a  great  ball  she  was  giving, 
to  be  preceded  by  a  concert  of  artists  from  the 
Italian  opera.  The  repast  was  luxurious  in  every 
particular,  with  many  guests;  among  them  were 
Celestin,  her  husband,  with  whom  she  was  more 
friendly,  and  her  three  grown  sons.  She  presided 
in  a  magnificent  toilette  and  was  taking  the  lead, 
as  usual,  in  conversation,  when  she  suddenly  turned 
ghastly  pale  and  fell  back  in  her  chair  unconscious. 
Her  sons  at  once  calmed  the  guests,  and  carried  their 
mother  to  a  couch,  explaining  simply  that  she  often 
suffered  such  attacks.  They  were  the  result  of  the 
wounds  inflicted  by  her  father-in-law.  The  banquet, 
the  concert  and  the  ball  proceeded  as  if  nothing  had 
happened. 

Charles  Gayarr6  described  her  as  majestic  and 
impressive,  and  with  the  kindest  possible  expression 
of  countenance,  particularly  when  speaking  to  or 
about  people  from  her  old  home.  She  died  in  1874, 
in  her  hotel,  rue  St.  Honor6.    Her  husband  survived 

*  Related  also  to  the  author. 


DE  PONTALBA  129 

her  four  years,  dying  in  1878,  at  the  age  of  ninety- 
seven,  in  his  domicile,  Avenue  Malakoff. 

Celestin  de  Pontalba,  the  eldest  son  and  eventual 
bearer  of  the  title,  like  his  father  came  to  New 
Orleans  for  his  wife.  He  married,  in  1858,  Frangoise 
Georgine  Blanche  Ogden  who,  Uke  himself,  belonged 
to  a  historic  family  of  New  Orleans.  Her  mother 
was  the  daughter  of  Madame  de  McNamara,  who 
was  a  daughter  of  Chauvin  des  Islets  de  Lery  and 
Charlotte  Faucon  du  Manoir.  McNamara  was  an 
Irishman  (his  title  of  Count  has  never  been 
explained)  who  came  to  Louisiana  early  in  1800  to 
become  a  planter.  M^rieult  was  the  name  of  his 
plantation  (below  the  city),  from  the  name  of  its 
former  owner. 

The  marriage  of  Celestin  to  Blanche  Ogden,  as  she 
was  familiarly  called,  was  one  of  the  pretty  memories 
that  survived  to  an  old  lady,  a  very  grande  dame  of 
the  past.*  She  was  one  of  the  little  girls  who  clus- 
tered on  the  steps  of  the  Cathedral  to  see  the  bride 
(a  beautiful  blonde)  walk  in,  as  was  the  custom  of 
that  time,  at  the  head  of  a  long  suite  of  beautiful 
bridesmaids. 

And,  a  propos  of  the  beautiful  blonde  bride,  comes 
to  memory  another  story — a  tradition.  Madame 
McNamara  Merieult,  sojourning  in  Paris  during 
the  Empire,  was  noted  for  her  beauty,  which  was 
enhanced  by  a  wonderful  chevelure,  golden  blonde, 
that  fell  Hke  a  veil  to  her  feet.  Napoleon,  so  the 
fantastic  story  goes,  who  was  at  that  time  wishing 
to  please  the  Sultan  of  Turkey,  heard  that  that 
royal   personage  was  looking  through  Paris  for  a 

*  Mrs.  James  Grimshaw;  a  Miss  Berthoud,  daughter  of  a  dame 
d'honneur  of  Marie  Antoinette. 


130  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

blonde  p^ruque  to  take  away  with  him  to  fulfill  a 
promise  to  a  favorite  of  his  harem,  and  that  he  was 
in  despair  at  not  finding  one  suitably  handsome. 
From  maid  to  maid  and  from  coiffeur  to  coiffeur  the 
story  w^ent  and  traveled  upward  until  it  reached  the 
ears  of  Josephine  that  the  Louisiana  Countess, 
McNamara  de  M6rieult,  carried  on  her  head  the 
making  of  the  most  beautiful  and  wonderful  peruque 
in  the  world!  To  Napoleon  this  was  sufficient; 
Madame  McNamara  de  Merieult  was  approached 
and  offered  her  own  terms  for  her  hair !  She  decUned. 
And  the  story  goes  no  further. 

Celestin  de  Pontalba  and  Blanche  Ogden  left  two 
sons  and  a  daughter.  The  eldest  son.  Baron  Edouard 
de  Pontalba,  brings  the  family  well  within  the  present 
memory  of  Louisianians.  He  was  born  in  France 
in  1839,  and  in  1864  married,  at  Senlis,  Desiree 
Victoire  Clothilde  de  Vernois,  the  handsome  aristo- 
cratic grande  damey  who  presided  with  the  ineffable 
grace  (one  may  say,  of  a  Louisianian)  at  his  table; 
showing  herself  in  sympathy,  talk  and  historical 
interests  his  coadjutor  as  well  as  helpmeet. 

In  heart  and  mind,  true  to  ancestral  attachments, 
Edouard  de  Pontalba  ever  responded  to  the  name  of 
the  State  as  to  a  watchword ;  and  fortunate  was  the 
one  able  thus  to  invoke  his  kindly  interest  and 
enjoy  his  unforgetable  generosity  of  mind  and 
hospitaUty  of  board.  He  was  an  ardent  student  of 
Louisiana  history  to  which,  as  we  have  seen,  he  was 
connected  by  family  ties,  reaching  through  ancestral 
alliances  to  Bienville  himself.  Through  his  long  and 
careful  searchings  for  historical  documents  con- 
nected with  Louisiana,  he  became  an  intimate  fre- 
quenter of  the  colonial  archives  of  France,  prov- 


DE  PONT  ALB  A  131 

ing  an  ever-ready  and  available  means  of  communi- 
cation between  them  and  Louisiana  historical 
students. 

In  the  progress  of  further  elucidation  of  political 
questions  and  personal  appreciations,  he  penetrated 
into  the  family  archives  of  Mont  FEveque,  where 
finding  the  letters  (from  which  we  have  quoted)  of 
his  distinguished  and  unfortunate  great-grandfather, 
written  to  his  wife,  that  throw  such  a  kindly  light 
upon  his  character,  he  copied  and  presented  them  to 
the  Louisiana  Historical  Society.  It  is  in  his  own 
minute,  beautiful  handwriting  that  we  possess  also 
the  Etat  des  Services  of  the  gallant  soldier,  which,  with 
the  letters,  he  presented  to  the  Historical  Society. 
He  added  also  to  its  archives  from  his  family  papers 
the  very  valuable  copies  of  the  official  letters  of  his 
great-granduncle.  Governor  Miro;  an  inestimable 
aid  to  the  understanding  of  the  hnportant  period  of 
the  Spanish  Domination  in  Louisiana. 

SUght  of  form,  with  extreme  dehcacy  of  features, 
modest  and  retiring  to  an  almost  embarrassing 
degree,  he  nevertheless  conveyed  the  impression  of 
an  heir  and,  if  need  be,  of  an  actor  ol  heroic  deeds. 
He  was  a  good  talker  in  spite  of  his  reserve,  drawing 
frankly  upon  the  inexhaustible  treasures  of  ex- 
perience, reading  and  family  traditions  at  his 
command. 

After  passing  through  the  war  of  1870,  and  the 
horrors  of  the  Commune,  he,  in  his  old  age  and 
feeble  health,  was  summoned  to  suffer  the  even 
greater  horror  of  the  late  war!  In  Paris,  in  1914,  he 
endured  the  painful  anxieties  caused  by  the  ruthless 
march  of  the  Prussians  upon  it,  and  the  terrible 
panic  that,  as  a  whirlwind,  drove  him  and  his  family 


132  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

into  flight  from  the  capital.  When  he  returned  he 
was  broken  in  health.  His  beautiful  summer  home 
at  Senlis  lay  in  the  path  of  the  Prussian  army.  He 
did  not  live  to  see  the  compensation  of  victory.  He 
died  during  the  early  winter  of  1919  in  Paris,  at  the 
home  of  his  daughter,  rue  Pergolese  66,  and  was 
buried  at  Senhs.  \ 

His  only  child,  Blanche  Genevieve  Jeanne  Micaela 
Delfau  de  Pontalba,  is  the  wife  of  Jacques  Frederic  ^ 
Kulp  of  Paris.     Their  daughters,  Jacqueline  and  • 
D6siree,  are  the  only  descendants  of  this  line  of  the  I 
Pontalbas.  ; 

Jacqueline  is  the  wife  of  the  Comte  Roland  Balmy  ^ 
d'Avricourt.  The  title  and  the  patrimonial  chateau  \ 
of  Mont  I'Eveque  passed  to  a  half  brother  of  the  j 
Baron  Edouard,  whose  grandson  Alfred  is  the  only  r 
male  descendant  of  the  family  living  to-day.  '> 


CHAPTER  VII 
ROUER  DE  VILLERAY 

THE  name  of  Villere  shines  with  a  luster  all  its 
own  in  the  annals  of  New  Orleans'  history.  To 
the  historian  the  hand  of  the  city  seems  to  hold  it 
poised  aloft — a  jewel  from  her  casket.  The  name 
was  known  at  first  as  Rouer  de  Villeray  and,  accord- 
ing to  local  tradition,  was  originally  ItaUan,  belong- 
ing to  the  illustrious  house  of  la  Rovere,  which  gave 
two  Popes  besides  Cardinals  and  Bishops  to  the 
Church,  many  sovereign  Princes  to  Italy  and  the 
Republic  of  Genoa,  and  possessed  chevaUers  innum- 
erable of  the  most  distinguished  orders  of  France,  f 

When  the  family  became  French  is  not  recorded, 
but  it  is  known  that  branches  established  in  Pied- 
mont passed  from  there  into  France  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  where  they  were  known  under  the  several 
names  of  Rovere,  La  Rouyer,  Rouer. 

One  of  them,  Raymond  de  Rouer  of  Languedoc, 
a  Knight  of  St.  Louis  and  Governor  of  Narbonne, 
was  sent  as  Ambassador  to  Spain  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  in  1562  he  commanded  the  armies  of 
the  King  during  the  rehgious  wars  in  Languedoc. 

Louis  Rouer  de  Villeray,  the  first  of  the  name  who 

*  "FamiJles  de  la  France  Colonials."    Margry.  Paris,  1851. 

t  There  are  no  documents  left  in  the  family  for  the  reason  that 
when,  in  Havre,  in  1793,  the  wife  of  the  Marquis  de  Villere,  a 
loyalist  and  imigree,  dreading  a  domiciliary  visit  from  the  Revolu- 
tionists, destroyed  all  her  family  papers,  fearing  that  their  discovery 
might  lead  to  her  husband's  denunciation  and  condemnation. 

133 


134  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  ; 

went  to  Canada,  belonged  to  the  branch  of  theii 
family  established  in  Touraine,  the  head  of  which,  \ 
Rene  de  Rouer,  bore  the  hereditary  title  of  Marquis  j 
de  Villeray,  Seigneur  of  Martin,  Revillon  and  off 
Comblot,  near  Mortagne,  where  he  died.  i 

Louis  Rouer  went  to  Canada  about  1650,  very 
young  and  very  poor,  to  seek  his  fortune,  following 
the  good  old  Norman  recommendation,  ^'cherche 
qui  n'a/^  The  young  Canadian  sought;  but  found 
at  first  only  dangers  innumerable  and  cruel  hardships 
of  all  kinds.  Nevertheless,  he  was  able  to  make  his 
way  despite  them  all,  and  from  a  subordinate  employ- 
ment rose  at  the  age  of  twenty-four  to  a  respectable 
position  in  the  Sovereign  Council  of  Canada,  later 
becoming  its  President,  a  position  that  he  filled  for 
thirty  years. 

He  married  Catherine  Sevestre,  daughter  of  one 
of  the  great  pioneer  Canadian  families,  his  name 
being  now  corrupted  by  the  Canadians  into  Roy  de 
Villere.  His  sons  following  in  the  career  he  had 
opened  for  them  in  civil  life,  became  Councillors  and 
Judges.  They  married  into  good  Canadian  families, 
such  as  Le  Gardeur  de  Tilly,  de  Repentigny,  de 
Lery  and  Lemoyne  de  Longueil.  They  passed,  or, 
as  it  was  regarded  in  that  day,  mounted  from  the 
magistracy  into  mihtary  service.  At  the  end  of  the 
Seven  Years'  War,  four  Villeres  were  listed  in  the 
French  Army  as  ofiicers.  Upon  the  surrender  of 
Canada  by  the  French,  they  returned  to  France. 

Previous  to  this,  however,  a  Villere  had  made  his 
appearance  in  Louisiana.  He  had  presumably, 
with  the  Canadian  Chauvin  family,  to  which  he 
was  allied  by  marriage,  joined  Iberville's  expedition 
for  the  discovery  of  the  Mississippi.     It  will  be 


ROUER  DE  VILLERAY  135 

remembered  that  Iberville,  in  his  preparations  for 
his  expedition,  demanded  that  a  contingent  of 
Canadians  should  be  allowed  him. 

The  existing  marriage  contracts  furnish  the  only- 
traces  by  which  this  Viller6  can  be  followed.  In 
1695,  Jacques  Nepveu,  son  of  PhiUppe  Nepveu  and 
Marie  Denise  Sevestre,  was  married  in  Montreal 
to  Michelle  Chauvin,  daughter  of  Pierre  Chauvin 
and  Marie  Antreuil — a  dispensation  being  obtained 
on  account  of  their  consanguinity.  Marie  Catherine 
Nepveu,  their  daughter,  was  married  in  Montreal 
to  Etienne  Roy  de  Villere,  the  first  Louisiana  Vil- 
ler^.  He  became  the  father  of  Joseph  Roy  de 
Viller^. 

Coming  to  our  next  stepping  stone  of  date,  in 
1726,  we  find  living  on  Bienville's  land,  extending 
from  New  Orleans  up  the  Tchoupitoulas  road,  ^'Le 
Roy,  his  wife,  and  Bellair,  his  associate. '^  Higher  up 
the  river,  on  the  Tchoupitoulas  tract  in  Bienville's 
concession,  were  situated  the  plantations  of  the  three 
Chauvin  brothers:  DeLery,  Beaulieu  and  Lafreniere. 

In  1728  the  marriage  was  celebrated,  in  the  St. 
Louis  Cathedral,  of  Catherine  Nepveu,  widow  of  the 
deceased  Etienne  Roy  de  Villere,  and  Jacques 
Hubert  Bellair,  son  of  Ignace  Hubert  and  Barbe 
Chauvin.  Here  also,  a  dispensation,  on  account  of 
consanguinity,  was  necessary,  both  parties  being 
children  of  sisters. 

Joseph  Roy  Villere,  who  was  very  young  when  his 
father  died,  was  reared  by  his  stepfather,  Bellair, 
who  sent  him  to  France,  where  he  and  his  cousin, 
Nicolas  de  Lafreniere,  received  their  education. 
The  daughter  of  Hubert  Bellair  and  Catherine  Nep- 
veu, Marie  Marguerite  Bellair,  was  married  to  her 


^li 


136  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

cousin,  Nicolas  de  Lafreniere,  who  thus  became  the 
brother-in-law  as  well  as  cousin  of  Villere.  When 
Lafreniere  was  appointed  Attorney-General,  Villere 
was  named  to  the  official  post  of  Ecrivain  de  la 
Marine  (maritime  notary). 

Beyond  these  facts  nothing  is  Known  of  the  early 
life  of  Villere.  The  great  Canadian  pioneers,  leav- 
ing no  private  papers  or  documents  behind  them, 
have  to  be  trailed,  as  it  were,  across  a  virgin  forest 
of  history,  through  which  they  gUded  like  Indians. 
We  come,  however,  into  a  clear  space  in  the  marriage 
contract  between  Villere,  described  as  an  ^'Ecrivain 
de  la  Marine  en  cette  ville,"  and  Mademoiselle  Mar- 
guerite de  la  Chaise,  grandaughter  of  the  Chevalier 
d'Arensbourg.  The  settlements  were  handsome  and 
generous  from  both  parties,  as  beseemed  so  notable 
a  marriage.  The  dower  of  the  bride  amounted  to 
forty  thousand  livres,  the  groom  presenting  her  with 
six  thousand.  According  to  the  good  old  Creole 
custom,  the  parents  of  the  bride  provided  all  the 
furniture,  silver  and  linen  of  the  future  estabhsh- 
ment,  but  with  the  stipulation,  also  a  Creole  custom, 
that  the  husband  and  wife  should  live  with  the 
bride's  parents  for  the  space  of  three  whole  consecu- 
tive years.  The  marriage  was  solemnized  in  the 
St.  Louis  Cathedral  October  12th,  1759. 

In  1763,  Marie  de  la  Chaise,  sister  of  Marguerite, 
was  married  to  Frangois  Chauvin  de  L^ry — the 
first  cousin  of  Viller^ — thus  binding  the  two  great 
families  together  by  another  tie. 

By  1763,  Villere  had  acquired  a  plantation  on  the 
Cote  des  Allemands  and  had  become  Captain  of  the 
German  Militia,  of  which  his  wife's  grandfather, 
the  old  Chevalier  d'Arensbourg,  was  Commandant. 


ROUER  DE  VILLERAY  137 

At  the  end  of  the  prescribed  three  years,  the 
couple  established  themselves  on  their  plantation. 
As  described  by  Gayarr^,  it  was  not  a  large  planta- 
tion, and  the  slaves  upon  it,  of  both  sexes  and  all 
ages,  did  not  exceed  thirty-two.  The  house  was  the 
usual  modest  Louisiana  plantation  house  of  the 
period,  one  of  the  little  unpainted  wooden  cottages, 
called  at  that  time  '^Acadian  houses,"  furnished 
with  the  Spartan  simplicity  which,  Gayarr^  remarks, 
distinguished  the  Louisiana  planters  of  that  time. 
The  furniture  of  the  wife  of  the  most  distinguished 
citizen  of  Louisiana  and  granddaughter  of  the 
Sieur  de  la  Chaise,  consisted  of  a  cypress  bedstead, 
three  feet  wide  by  six  feet  in  length,  with  a  mattress 
of  corn  shucks  and  one  of  feathers  on  top ;  a  bolster 
of  corn  shucks,  and  a  coarse  cotton  counterpane, 
spun  and  woven  probably  by  the  lady  herself;  six 
chairs  with  straw  bottoms ;  and  candelabra  with  the 
common  wax  candles  made  in  the  country.  The  rest 
of  the  house  was  not  more  luxuriously  furnished. 
Here,  in  1761,  was  born  to  them  their  son,  Jacques 
Phihppe  Roy  de  Villere,  who  became  the  first  Creole 
Governor  of  Louisiana  and,  in  1764,  their  daughter 
Louise,  who  married  Simon  Du  Courneau  Dasplatia, 
and  here  they  ended  their  serene  lives  of  wedded 
bhss. 

In  June,  1764,  the  news  came  of  the  cession  of 
Louisiana  by  France  to  Spain.  It  was  the  hardy, 
independent  Canadians  who  were  the  first  to  resent 
the  transaction  as  an  insult  to  Louisiana  and  to 
themselves.  Always  restive  under  the  official  arro- 
gance of  the  French  officers,  civil  and  military,  they 
had  with  their  own  arrogance  shouldered  their  way 
to  the  front  in  opinion  and  action,  assuming  a  pro- 


138  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

prietary  right  of  domination  in  the  community 
founded  by  Canadians,  and  maintained  by  their 
independent  strength  and  shrewdness,  in  striking 
contrast  to  the  more  dependent  position  of  the 
French. 

Lafreniere,  the  foremost  citizen  among  the  Cana- 
dians, had  risen  to  the  important  position  of  Attor- 
ney-General, a  position  that  he  owed  to  his  natural 
abilities  and  superior  education.  Backed  by  his 
strong  family  connections  and  by  his  ever-growing 
popularity,  he,  and  not  Aubry,  was  unquestionably 
the  first  representative  of  power  in  the  Louisiana 
country.  When  he  voiced  a  manly  opposition  to 
slavish  submission  to  a  decree  that,  by  the  stroke  of  a 
pen,  passed  them,  their  families,  their  children  and 
their  posterity  away  to  another  foreign  country, 
Aubry's  voice,  in  comparison,  was  a  mere  whimper- 
ing of  childish  fear. 

When  Lafreniere  called  a  pubHc  meeting  in  New 
Orleans  to  protest  against  the  cession  of  the  province 
to  Spain,  Villere  attended  it,  seconding  him  enthusi- 
astically and  whole-heartedly,  and  leading  the 
applause  of  the  Assembly  for  Lafreniere.  When  the 
Assembly  was  again  called  to  support  the  resolution 
for  the  expulsion  of  Ulloa,  Villere,  at  the  head  of  four 
hundred  armed  Germans,  marched  down  the  river, 
captured  the  Tchoupitoulas  Gate,  entered  the  city 
and  proceeded  to  the  place  of  meeting,  where  he 
again  supported  Lafreniere's  resolution.  His  serv- 
ices can  be  measured  by  the  furious  denunciations 
of  the  Spanish  Attorney-General.  Lafreniere,  alone, 
has  the  glory  of  surpassing  Viller6  in  the  celebrated 
''presentment^': 

"With  regard  to  Viller6,"  so  it  says,  "he  was  a  man  of  atrociou? 


ROUER  DE  VILLERAY  139 

disposition  and  remarkable  for  his  pride  and  violence;  he  was 
undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  consiMcuous  movers  in  the  conspiracy, 
and  signalized  himself  by  deeds  of  the  most  striking  character. 
He  it  was  who  stirred  up  to  rebellion  the  Germans,  of  whom  he  was 
the  commander.  He  it  was  who  made  them  sign  the  petition  request- 
ing the  expulsion  of  Ulloa  and  of  other  Spaniards.  He  it  was  who 
led  them  to  New  Orleans  to  incorporate  them  with  the  other  rebels 
and  to  strengthen  the  insurrection  ...  he  was  at  their  head  and 
commanded  them."    .    .    . 

Upon  the  arrival  of  O'Reilly,  Viller6  at  first 
thought  of  seeking  safety  with  the  English  at  their 
post  a  few  miles  above  his  plantation.  But  when  he 
heard  of  the  arrest  of  his  friends  and  kinsmen  as 
conspirators,  receiving  at  the  same  time  assurances 
from  Aubry  that  O'Reilly  was  minded  to  act  len- 
iently toward  all  engaged  in  the  revolt,  he  decided 
to  proceed  instead  to  New  Orleans  and  present  him- 
self to  the  Spanish  General. 

He  was  arrested  at  the  Tchoupitoulas  Gate. 
There  are  various  versions  of  what  befell  him.  The 
Spanish  official  report  states  that  the  blasting  of  his 
hopes  threw  him  into  such  a  state  of  frenzy  that  he 
died,  raving  mad,  on  the  day  of  his  arrest.* 

The  cool  and  judicial  Martin,  who  lived  at  a  time 
when  intimate  evidence  of  the  affair  was  obtainable, 
relates  that  after  Villere  was  arrested  he  was  im- 
mediately conveyed  to  a  Spanish  frigate  which  lay 
in  the  river.  On  hearing  of  this,  his  wife  hastened 
to  the  frigate  in  a  skiff  rowed  by  her  slaves.  As  her 
boat  approached  the  vessel,  she  was  hailed  and 
roughly  ordered  away.  She  made  herself  known 
and  solicited  admission  to  her  husband,  but  she 
was  answered  that  she  could  not  see  him.  Viller^, 
in  the  place  of  his  confinement,  recognized  his  wife's 

*  Gayarr^'a  "French  Domination." 


140  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

voice  in  protestation,  and  insisted  on  being  allowed 
to  see  her.  On  the  refusal  of  this,  a  struggle  ensued 
between  him  and  his  guards,  in  which  he  fell,  pierced 
by  their  bayonets. 

^'His  bloody  shirt,  thrown  into  the  boat,  announced 
to  Madame  Villere  that  she  had  ceased  to  be  a  wife; 
and  the  rope  was  cut  that  held  the  skiff  to  the 
frigate. '^  Gayarre  thinks  that  the  atrocity  of  the 
bloody  shirt  is  not  probable;  but  the  story  is  piously 
preserved  in  popular  tradition,  and  has  been  repeated 
by  other  historians  as  well  authenticated  as  Martin. 

Villere's  escape  from  the  Spanish  tribunal  did  not 
relieve  him  from  the  condemnation  he  had  deserved, 
according  to  the  Spanish  Attorney-General.  As 
the  others  had  been  condemned  to  death,  in  the  same 
manner,  his  memory  was  condemned  as  infamous. 
The  death  of  Villere,  however,  in  New  Orleans, 
excited  even  more  horror  than  the  subsequent  execu- 
tion of  Lafr^niere.  A  contemporary  historian, 
Champigny,  has  written  what  must  have  been  the 
popular  feeling  about  him : 

"None  could  be  braver  than  Villerd  ...  he  had  eveiything; 
valor,  fortitude,  freedom  of  mind.  Violent  and  fiery,  but  frank, 
loyal,  and  firm  in  his  resolutions;  of  good  size,  well  made,  his  step 
firm,  his  look  bold  and  martial,  his  devotion  to  his  King  was  a 
frenzy  rather  than  a  form  of  patriotism.  .  .  .  Had  all  the  colo- 
nists thought  as  he  did,  I  doubt  whether  a  single  Spaniard  would 
ever  have  reached  New  Orleans." 

The  machinery  of  the  Spanish  Government  was 
installed  and  set  in  motion.  The  great  French 
Colonial  tribunal,  the  Superior  Council,  was  abol- 
ished, and  in  its  place  the  Cabildo  was  inaugurated, 
with  Alfarez,  Alguazil,  Alcalde  and  Regidores. 
Spanish  was  made  the  official  language,  not  only  Id 


ROUER  DE  VILLERAY  141 

the  State,  but  in  the  Church.  Spanish  priests  were 
put  in  the  Cathedral.  The  Ursuhne  Nuns  were 
required  to  use  Spanish  breviaries  and  to  teach 
Spanish.  De  jure  and  de  facto,  the  province  was 
made  the  province  of  Spain,  as  surely  as  it  had 
formerly  been  the  province  of  France. 

After  O'Reilly's  departure,  Don  Luis  de  Unzaga 
became  Governor.  A  great  silence  and  quietude  fell 
over  the  Creole  population.  The  excitement  of  the 
revolution,  like  a  delirium  of  fever,  passed  away  in 
the  gradual  restoration  of  healthy  activities — save 
in  the  hearts  of  those  families  where  was  cherished 
and  enshrined  the  bloody  grave  of  a  father  or  hus- 
band. Time  and  the  gentle  conduct  of  the  Spanish 
Government  slowly  effaced  the  traces  of  the  past. 
The  brother  of  Marguerite  de  la  Chaise,  and  brother- 
in-law  of  Villere,  accepted  a  position  in  the  Cabildo. 
In  an  incredibly  short  space  of  time  we  read  of  social 
amenities  and  cordialities  between  the  Spaniards 
and  the  Creoles,  with  the  usual  happy  result  of  inter- 
marriage. Unzaga,  himself,  set  the  example  by 
marrying  the  daughter  of  St.  Maxent,  a  wealthy 
Creole  planter ;  other  officers  imitated  him.  Milhet's 
widow  married  Don  Panis,  Captain  of  the  firing 
squadron  that  executed  the  patriots,  but  it  is  said 
that  she  never  found  this  out,  so  well  did  he  guard  his 
secret.  Creole  names  crept  into  official  positions. 
A  Louisiana  regiment,  to  serve  the  Spanish  King,  was 
formed  from  the  elite  of  the  population.  ^'It  is  an 
admitted  fact,"  writes  Gayarre,  ^'that  the  Creoles  of 
those  days  were  remarkable  for  their  great  size,  for 
the  manhness  of  their  bearing,  for  their  pecuharly 
striking  lineaments,  which  constituted  nobility  of 
face,  and  for  the  elegant  symmetry  of  their  forms." 


142  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

O'Reilly,  struck  by  the  distinction  in  appearance  of 
the  Creole  officers,  regretted  his  inability  to  take 
with  him  some  of  them  to  show  the  King  as  speci- 
ments  of  his  new  subjects. 

Of  all  the  documents  that  the  historian  longs  for 
at  this  period,  the  one  whose  loss  or  non-existence  is 
most  deplored  is  one  that  might  have  recorded  the 
life  of  Jacques  Philippe  Viller6,  the  son  of  Joseph 
Roy  Villere,  the  first  Creole  Governor  of  Louisiana- 
Imagination  alone  can  supply  it,  and  we  turn  fondly 
to  the  picture  of  the  little  boy  of  eight  in  the  planta- 
tion home,  anxiously  watching  his  father  in  delibera- 
tion, hesitating  between  the  advice  of  his  wife  not  to 
trust  the  Spaniards  but  to  escape  to  the  English,  and 
the  advice  of  Governor  Aubry,  in  a  written  letter 
counseling  a  manly  confidence  in  O'Reilly's  fine 
words  and  gracious  demeanor.  The  child  sees  and 
hears  the  proud  decision;  the  final  determination  to 
brave  rather  than  to  flee  from  the  Spaniards ;  to  take 
his  stand  beside  his  imprisoned  friends.  With  beat- 
ing heart  he  looks  on  as  his  father  makes  ready  to 
depart,  and  with  his  mother  he  receives  his  embrace. 

Then  in  the  quiet  of  the  apprehensive  household, 
comes  the  rumor — forerunner  of  the  dire  truth  of  the 
master's,  the  father's,  the  husband's  arrest  and 
capture!  Then  the  little  boy  beholds  his  mother's 
consternation  and  frenzied  haste  to  go  at  once  to 
join  her  husband — to  share  his  fate  with  him!  No 
time  now  for  farewells!  She  throws  herself  into  the 
skiff,  always  waiting  at  the  plantation  landing  on 
the  river,  and  her  slaves,  the  good  rowers,  bend  their 
backs  and  strain  their  muscles  under  her  urging  for 
greater  and  greater  speed — and  so  they  disappear 
around  the  bend  in  the  river.     Anxious  long  hours  of 


ROUER  DE  VILLERAY  143 

waiting  follow  for  the  little  boy — she  returns,  clasping 
a  reddened  garment  to  her  bosom!  No  cries!  No 
words!  They  are  not  needed,  and  then  the  black 
doom  hovering  like  a  cloud  over  the  city  for  days, 
crashes,  falls!  To  the  eyes  on  that  plantation,  it 
must  have  been  a  surprise  that  annihilation  of  the 
city  itself  did  not  ensure,  that  its  buildings  still 
could  be  seen  standing! 

The  seizure  of  the  plantation  by  the  Spanish 
officials  followed,  and  the  flight  of  the  widow  and  her 
two  children  (although  this  is  not  known)  to  a  refuge 
with  the  grandfather,  the  old  Chevalier  d'Arens- 
bourg,  the  patriarch  of  the  German  Coast.  The 
rightful  inheritance  of  wealth  was  succeeded  by  an 
inheritance  of  poverty!  But  after  this  comes  a 
tardy  gesture  of  pity  and  sympathy  from  France. 
King  Louis  XVI  sends  for  the  son  of  Joseph  Roy 
Villere,  to  be  educated  at  his  court,  at  his  expense. 
The  little  boy  departs  for  France,  and  his  career 
is  now  recorded  for  us. 

Schooled  and  trained  like  the  son  of  a  nobleman, 
he  became  a  page  in  the  Court  of  the  King.  But, 
according  to  a  story  inherited  by  his  great-grand- 
children, and  still  repeated,  the  life  at  court  had  its 
trials  for  the  little  Creole,  fresh  from  a  Louisiana 
plantation.  His  vernacular  was  the  Creole  patois 
of  his  negro  nurse.  When  excited  or  angry  he  forgot 
his  French  and,  in  local  parlance,  talked  "nigger,'' 
to  the  extreme  delight  and  amusement  of  his  fellow 
pages.  His  feet,  as  awkward  as  his  tongue,  could 
never  learn  to  walk  on  waxed  floors;  he  slipped  and 
fell  continually,  an  accident  that  never  failed  to 
excite  further  ridicule.  One  day  when  the  laughter  at 
his  expense  was  at  its  height,  the  young  Creole,  with  a 


144  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

vigorous  expression  or  two  of  "nigger,"  jerked  off  his 
coat  and,  proceeding  to  show  the  Httle  courtiers 
what  he  could  do  with  his  fists,  gave  each  one  a  severe 
drubbing,  and  suffered  no  more  from  their  ridicule. 

At  eighteen,  Villere  was  commissioned  a  Lieu- 
tenant in  the  French  Army,  the  King  presenting  him 
with  a  sword.  He  joined  a  regiment  serving  in  San 
Domingo.  A  few  years  later,  on  the  death  of  his 
mother,  he  returned  to  his  own  people  in  Louisiana; 
and  in  1784,  in  the  parish  church  of  St.  Louis,  he 
was  married  to  Henriette  Fazende,  daughter  of 
Gabriel  Fazende,  who  came  from  France  in  1723  to 
serve  on  the  first  Superior  Council  in  the  colony. 
They  made  their  home  on  a  sugar  plantation  below 
the  city,  facing  the  river  and  adjoining  the  estates 
of  Delaronde,  Chalmette  and  Bienvenu.  The  land 
of  these  plantations,  gained,  as  we  shall  see,  immor- 
tality in  history  as  the  battlefield  upon  which  General 
Jackson  defeated  the  British  Army  under  Pakenham, 
in  1815. 

The  home  of  Villere  was  a  wooden  cottage  similar 
to  the  one  in  which  he  was  born,  all  the  rooms  being 
on  one  floor,  with  wide  galleries  in  front  and  rear, 
surrounded  by  trees  and  shrubberies. 

Five  children  were  born  to  him:  Rene  Gabriel, 
1785;  Adele,  1792;  Jules,  1794;  Delphin,  1797; 
Caliste,  1799;  Felix,  1802;  Anatole,  1807. 

There  are  no  other  happenings  to  record  in  the 
life  of  the  sugar  planter.  His  was  the  life  that  his 
father  had  dreamed  of,  on  his  plantation,  with  his 
wife  and  children.  The  passing  of  the  seasons,  the 
ripening  of  his  crop  of  cane,  the  growth  of  the  chil- 
dren from  babyhood  to  childhood,  filled  the  years, 
a  scant  number  as  history  reckons  it,  when  lo,  by  a 


ROUER  DE  VILLERAY  145 

mere  grasp  of  the  hand,  Napoleon  seized  from  Spain 
and  returned  to  France  the  colony  so  carelessly 
thrown  away  in  1763 — the  country  which  thirty-four 
years  before  his  father  and  uncle  had  given  their 
lives  to  preserve  to  France! 

Villere  could  watch  from  the  gallery  of  his  plan- 
tation house  the  Colonial  Prefet,  Laussat,  going  up 
the  river  on  his  way  to  take  possession  of  the  city, 
his  barge  followed  by  a  long  procession  of  boats, 
filled  with  Spanish  officials  and  Creole  citizens.  He 
doubtless  contributed  by  his  presence  to  the  bril- 
Hant  fetes  given  in  the  city  to  celebrate  the  great 
event.  But  his  name  does  not  appear  in  any  of  the 
addresses  to  the  French  Prefet  printed  by  the  exuber- 
ant Creoles. 

Laussat,  nevertheless,  was  too  well  informed  to 
ignore  Villere 's  importance  in  the  community.  He 
writes  in  his  report  to  his  government  on  the 
measures  he  took  to  annul  the  Spanish  municipality 
and  inaugurate  a  French  one  in  its  place,  announcing 
that  after  selecting  M.  Bore  for  Mayor,  he  took  care 
to  join  with  him,  in  authority,  some  of  the  most 
respectable  inhabitants  of  the  city,  known  to  have  a 
capacity  for  business  and  a  knowledge  of  the  three 
languages  spoken  in  the  colony — French,  Spanish, 
Enghsh. 

"It  was  with  a  true  feeling  of  pleasure,"  he  writes,  "that  I  put 
in  authority  M.  Villere,  the  son  of  the  most  interesting  of  O'Reilly's 
victims,  himself  much  loved  in  the  colony  and  held  in  repute  for 
his  probity,  good  conduct  and  merit.  I  thus  discharged  a  second 
debt  on  the  part  of  France." 

In  the  more  impressive  ceremonies  shortly  after- 
wards, of  the  transfer  of  Louisiana  to  the  United 
States,  Villere  acted  as  Major  on  the  staff  of  Laus- 


146  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

sat.     He  became,  with  the  colony,  American,  and 
served  his  new  flag  with  steady-going  loyalty. 

To  the  new  American  Governor's  many  anxieties, 
to  the  many  causes  of  perturbation  that  were  spread 
like  thorns  on  the  couch  of  that  serious,  conscien- 
tious official,  to  his  patient  complaints  to  President 
Jefferson  and  Secretary  Monroe,  Villere  furnished 
naught.  When  Louisiana  from  its  state  of  probation 
was  finally  raised  to  the  dignity  of  a  State  in  the 
Union,  he  was  chosen  as  a  member  of  the  convention 
called  for  the  momentous  duty  of  framing  a  consti- 
tution— the  first  constitution  of  Louisiana  (1812). 
The  record  of  his  contributions  to  its  proceedings 
is  contained  in  the  report  of  the  Convention. 

Three  years  later  came  the  great,  the  crowning 
ordeal  to  the  new  State.  In  1815,  the  English  Army 
invaded  Louisiana,  counting  upon  finding  a  divided 
State  through  the  ill  feeling  of  the  Creoles  to  the 
American  Government,  and  an  easy  and  sure  con- 
quest of  New  Orleans.  But  the  annals  of  military 
history  do  not  contain  a  more  striking  example  of 
miscalculation  than  the  simple  story  of  what  en- 
sued. It  is  too  well  known  to  repeat  except  in 
connection  with  Villere.  Offering  himself  at  once  to 
Governor  Claiborne,  he  was  made  Major-General 
of  the  first  Regiment  of  Louisiana  Militia,  and  given 
a  commission  at  one  of  the  outposts  of  defense  of  the 
city. 

The  English  plan  of  campaign  was  to  secure  a 
position  on  the  river,  whence  they  could  strike  at 
New  Orleans  before  it  had  time  to  prepare  adequate 
means  of  defense.  Through  the  treachery  of  some 
Spanish  fishermen,  they  were  led  from  the  lake 
where  their  ships  lay,   through  a  bayou,   to    the 


ROUER  DE  VILLERAY  147 

Viller6  plantation  canal,  in  full  view  of  the  river. 
But  the  story  should  be  told  in  its  full  completeness : 

"At  dawn  the  barges  entered  the  bayou.  The  English  sailors, 
standing  to  their  oars,  pushed  their  heavy  loads  through  the  tortuous 
shallow  water.  By  nine  o'clock  the  detachment  was  safe  on  shore. 
'The  place/  writes  the  English  authority,  an  officer  during  the 
campaign,  'was  as  wild  as  it  is  possible  to  imagine.  Gaze  where  we 
might,  nothing  could  be  seen  except  a  huge  marsh  covered  with 
tall  reeds.  The  marsh  became  gradually  less  and  less  continuous, 
being  intersected  by  wide  spots  of  firm  ground;  the  reeds  gave  place 
by  degrees  to  wood,  the  wood  to  enclosed  fields.' 

"The  troops  landed,  formed  into  columns,  and  pushing  after  the 
guides  and  engineers  began  their  march.  The  advance  was  slow  and 
toilsome  enough  to  such  novices  in  swamping.  But  cypresses, 
palmettoes,  cane  brakes,  vines  and  mire  were  at  last  worried  through; 
the  sun  began  to  brighten  the  ground  and  the  front  ranks,  quickening 
their  step,  broke  joyfully  into  an  open  field,  near  the  expected  canal. 
Beyond  a  distant  orange  grove,  the  buildings  of  the  Villere  planta- 
tion could  be  seen.  Advancing  rapidly  along  the  side  of  the  canal, 
and  under  cover  of  the  orange  grove,  a  company  gained  the  buildings, 
and,  spreading  out,  surrounded  them.  The  surprise  was  absolute. 
Major  Gabriel  Villere  and  his  brother,  sitting  on  the  front  gallery  of 
their  residence,  jumped  from  their  chairs  at  the  sight  of  the  redcoats 
before  them;  their  rush  to  the  other  side  of  the  house  only  showed 
them  that  they  were  bagged! 

"Secured  in  one  of  his  own  apartments,  under  guard  of  British 
soldiers,  the  young  Creole  officer  found  in  his  reflections  the  spur  to  a 
desperate  attempt  to  save  himself  and  his  race  from  a  suspicion  of 
disloyalty  to  the  United  States,  which,  under  the  circumstances, 
might  easily  be  directed  against  them  by  the  Americans.  Springing 
suddenly  through  his  guards,  and  leaping  from  a  window,  he  made  a 
rush  for  the  high  fence  that  enclosed  the  yard,  throwing  down  the 
soldiers  in  his  way.  He  cleared  the  fence  at  a  bound  and  ran  across 
the  open  field  that  separated  him  from  the  forest.  A  shower  of 
musket  balls  fell  about  him.  'Catch  or  kill  him!'  was  shouted 
behind  him.  But  the  light,  agile  Creole,  with  the  Creole  hunter's 
training  from  infancy,  was  more  than  a  match  for  his  pursuers  in 
such  a  race  as  that!  He  gained  the  woods,  a  swamp,  while  they  were 
crossing  the  field,  spreading  out  as  they  ran  to  shut  him  in.  He 
sprang  over  the  boggy  earth  into  the  swamp,  until  his  feet,  sinking 


148  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

deeper  and  deeper,  clogged  and  stuck.  The  Britons  were  gaining; 
had  reached  the  swamp!  He  could  hear  them  panting  and  blowing, 
and  the  orders  which  made  his  capture  inevitable.  There  was  but 
one  chance;  he  sprang  up  a  cypress  tree,  and  strove  for  the  thick 
moss  and  branches  overhead.  Half  way  up,  he  heard  a  whimpering 
below.  It  was  the  voice  of  his  dog,  his  favorite  setter,  whining, 
fawning  and  looking  up  to  him  with  all  the  pathos  of  brute  fidehty. 
There  was  no  choice;  it  was  her  hfe  or  his,  perhaps  the  surprise 
and  capture  of  the  city!  Dropping  to  the  earth,  he  seized  a  billet  of 
wood,  and  aimed  one  blow  between  the  setter's  devoted  eyes — with 
tears  in  his  own  eyes,  he  used  to  relate.  To  throw  the  body  to  one 
side,  snatch  some  brush  over  it,  spring  to  the  tree  again,  was  the  work 
of  an  instant.  As  he  drew  the  moss  around  his  crouching  figure,  and 
stilled  his  hard  breathing,  the  British  floundered  past.  When  they 
abandoned  their  useless  search,  he  slid  from  his  covert,  pushed 
through  the  swamp  to  the  next  plantation,  and  carried  the  alarm  at 
full  speed  to  the  city! 

*'The  British  troops  moved  up  the  road  along  the  levee  to  the 
upper  line  of  the  plantation,  and  took  their  position  in  three  columns. 
Headquarters  were  established  in  the  Villere  residence,  in  the  yard 
of  which  a  small  battery  was  thrown  up.  They  were  eight  miles 
from  the  city  and  separated  from  it  by  fifteen  plantations,  large  and 
small.  By  pushing  forward,  General  Keane  in  two  hours  could  have 
reached  the  city,  and  the  Battle  of  New  Orleans  would  have  taken 
place  then  and  there;  and  most  probably  a  different  decision  would 
have  been  wrested  from  victory.  The  British  officers  strongly 
urged  this  bold  hne  of  action,  but  Keane,  beUeving  the  statement 
that  General  Jackson  had  an  army  of  about  fifteen  thousand  in 
New  Orleans,  a  force  double  his  own,  feared  being  cut  off  from  the 
fleet.  He,  therefore,  concluded  to  delay  his  advance  until  the  other 
divisions  came  up.  This  was  on  the  twenty- third  day  of  December. 
'Gentlemen,'  said  Jackson,  to  his  aides  and  secretaries  at  half  past 
one  o'clock,  when  Villere  had  finished  his  report,  *the  British  are 
below;  we  must  fight  them  to-night.' "*    .    .    . 

In  the  skirmishes  that  followed,  and  in  the  great 
battle  of  the  eighth  of  January,  Joseph  Roy  Villere 
fought  gallantly  and  brilliantly,  when  (so  it  is  always 
repeated  in  the  family  tradition)   he  wielded  the 

*  "New  Orleans,  The  Place  and  the  People."     Grace  King. 


ROUER  DE  VILLERAY  149 

sword  presented  to  him  by  Louis  XVI.  One  of  the 
trophies  picked  up  from  the  field  of  battle  was  given 
to  Viller^ — a  small,  very  pretty  fowhng-piece,  said  to 
have  belonged  to  General  Lambert.  All  the  boys  of 
the  Villere  family  learned  to  shoot  upon  it,  caUing  it 
familiarly  and  tenderly  ''le  petit  Lambert.'^  It  is 
still  a  cherished  heirloom  in  the  family,  having  sur- 
vived all  the  trials  and  tribulations  possible  to  a 
gun  during  the  Confederate  War. 

Pakenham,  shot  on  the  field  of  battle,  was  car- 
ried, dying  or  dead,  to  the  Villere  house  and  there  laid 
upon  a  bed  in  a  front  room.  According  to  the  slaves 
employed  in  the  house,  he  was  buried  temporarily 
under  a  great  pecan  tree  on  the  lawn;  by  the  same 
token,  the  old  slaves,  more  picturesquely  than  truth- 
fully, aver  the  nuts  from  that  tree,  for  years  after- 
wards, always  showed  a  red  streak  as  of  blood. 

The  Villere  house  exists  no  longer,  having  been 
destroyed  by  fire,  but  its  substitute,  a  low  cottage 
with  gallery  in  front,  preserves  a  likeness  of  the  home 
in  which  Villere  lived  and  to  which  the  body  of  the 
gallant  Pakenham  w^as  borne  from  the  field  of  battle. 
The  field  would  still  be  in  sight,  and  the  river,  as  in 
1815,  but  for  what,  after  the  memory  of  the  battle, 
is  the  glory  of  the  spot — an  avenue  of  majestic  oaks, 
veiled  in  their  moss.*  The  venerable  trees  did  not 
belong  to  the  Villere  house,  but  to  Versailles,  the 
mansion  of  the  Marquis  de  la  Ronde,  whose  drive- 
way, leading  from  the  river,  they  shaded  and 
adorned.  The  good  brick  walls  of  the  noble  ruin, 
with  ragged  holes  in  their  stucco,  still  strive  to 

*  In  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Charles  S.  Sargent,  the  supreme  authority 
on  trees  in  America,  this  avenue  of  oaks  is  probably  "the  finest  in 
the  United  States"  as  he  expressed  it,  in  conversation  with  a  friend. 


150  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

maintain  their  old  air  of  patrician  pride  and  strength. 
Time  has  despoiled  the  once  elegant  villa  of  its  great 
front  gallery,  and  its  only  roof  is  now  the  evergreen 
tops  of  tall  trees,  that  have  pushed  their  way  up 
from  the  foundations  to  spread  their  covering  leaves 
over  it.  The  soft  foliage  of  a  thick  undergrowth 
screens  the  desolation  of  the  once  lordly  hall  and 
drawing-room.  A  more  beautiful,  haunting  place 
for  memory  cannot  be  imagined,  when,  under  the 
low-lying  sky,  the  long  gray  moss  of  the  oaks  swings, 
and  vibrates  in  the  breeze  from  the  river.  It  is  a 
spot  of  pious  pilgrimage  for  historical  devotees,  a 
hallowed  shrine  frequented  by  strangers.  Ladies 
of  patriotic  societies  hold  gatherings  there  on  the 
anniversary  of  the  battle  and  recapitulate  to  one 
another  the  traditions,  the  stories,  the  incidents 
that  ladies  love  to  collect  from  the  past.  A  ceme- 
tery for  soldiers,  with  its  checkerboard  of  graves 
with  painted  headboards,  fills  the  space  (and  hurts 
the  eye),  where  once  fought  the  heroic  forces  of 
England  and  America,  and  a  tall,  gaunt,  bare  monu- 
ment tries,  in  vain,  to  commemorate  the  glory  of  the 
victory. 

Poetry  and  imagination,  however,  have  raised  their 
own  monument — not  from  granite  but  from  living 
memory,  to  Jackson  behind  his  embankment  with 
his  Tennesseeans,  his  Kentuckians,  his  Baratarians, 
and  his  Creoles  having  against  them  Pakenham  with 
his  hitherto  unconquerable  regiments,  flaunting 
on  banners  their  famous  names.  After  the  battle, 
it  is  said,  they  made  a  broad  red  line  of  uniforms 
on  the  ground  where  they  fell,  whole  platoons 
together!  And  it  is  always  remembered  and  re- 
peated how,  once  the  smoke  of  battle  cleared  away, 


ROUER  DE  VILLERAY  151 

the  Angel  of  Peace  came  down  to  the  ground  where 
lay  the  dead  with  such  blessing  of  good  will  as  wiped 
all  enmity  from  the  heart  of  the  living.  For,  as 
sings  the  oldest  of  poets  of  the  most  heroic  of  war- 
riors :  ''These  men  fought  for  the  sake  of  a  heart-con- 
suming contention.  Yet  did  they  part  again  after 
in  friendship  bonded  together!" 

(1 )  The  Colonial  Dames  of  Louisiana  have  exerted  every  possible 
effort  of  enthusiastic  patriotism  to  obtain  from  Congress  adequate 
provision  for  the  preservation  of  this  noble  field,  and  its  maintenance 
as  a  National  Park.  It  is  the  fervent  wish  and  prayer  of  all  Louis- 
ianians  that  what  they  once  preserved  to  the  Union  may,  by  the 
Union,  be  preserved  to  them,  "To  the  glory  of  God  and  in  memory 
of  the  glory  achieved  by  men!" 

(2)  The  Chalmette  Tract,  as  it  is  called,  is  now  the  property  of 
the  Southern  Railways  System,  which  maintains  there  extensive 
docks,  where  ships  arrive  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  to  discharge 
and  receive  cargoes. 

To  return  from  the  fascinating  divergencies  of  the 
history  of  Louisiana  to  the  history  of  Viller6 — after 
the  Battle  of  New  Orleans,  he  had  one  more  adven- 
ture before  him.  In  1816,  he  was  elected  Governor  of 
Louisiana  to  succeed  Claiborne.  Time  has  never 
awarded  a  more  signal  compensation  for  past  in- 
juries. His  term  fell  during  the  halcyon  days  when 
Louisiana  enjoyed,  as  our  history  records  it,  her 
Golden  Age ;  w^hen  wealth  flowed  in  a  tidal  wave  over 
State  and  City,  disrupting  old  limits  and  barriers  and 
obliterating  old  landmarks;  when,  in  truth,  prosperity 
had  to  be  contended  with  as  adversity  once  had  been. 

The  record  of  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  pages  of 
Gayarr^  and  Martin.  Villere  proved  himself  to  be 
the  Governor  for  the  period;  wise,  steadfast,  exalted 
in  his  ideals.  His  first  messages  are  those  of  a 
Louisianian  carried  away  by  the  good  fortune  that 


152  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

had  come  to  his  State,  through  admission  to  the 
Union.  ^'May  we  always  by  our  conduct  render  our- 
selves deserving  of  such  blessings/'  is  the  ending  of 
one  of  them.  His  last  message  comprehends  not 
only  Louisiana,  but  America: 

"Wherever  we  turn  an  enquiring  eye,  it  is  impossible  among  the 
civihzed  nations  of  the  earth  to  discover  one  whose  situation  we  can 
reasonably  envy.  The  most  powerful  are  certainly  much  less  free; 
the  most  free  are  less  tranquil;  the  most  tranquil  less  independent; 
and  the  most  independent,  less  sheltered  from  foreign  influence, 
than  the  great  American  family." 

Viller6  died  in  1830  and  was  buried  in  the  St. 
Louis  Cemetery,  in  a  simple  brick  tomb  that  has 
almost  sunk  out  of  sight  in  the  soft  soil.  His  eight 
children  survived  him.  The  sons  settled  on  planta- 
tions below  the  city  on  both  sides  of  the  river  as 
near  as  possible  to  the  paternal  home;  prettily 
named  ^'Conseil"  in  memory  of  the  good  counsel 
that  had  never  failed  them  there.  It  was  the 
pleasant  custom  of  the  six  brothers  every  morn- 
ing, before  beginning  their  day's  work,  to  meet 
under  a  great  tree  on  one  of  the  plantations  over  the 
river,  where  they  exchanged  greetings  and  talked 
over  the  news  of  the  day. 

Iien6  Gabriel  was  married  to  Eulalie  de  la  Rondes ; 
they  had  five  children.  She  was  the  daughter  of 
Pierre  Denis  de  la  Ronde.  Jules,  married  to  Perle 
Olivier,  had  three  children.  The  daughter  of  Jules 
Viller6  and  Perle  Olivier  became  the  wife  of  General 
Gustave  Toutant  Beauregard,  and  was  the  mother 
of  his  three  children :  Rene,  Henri  and  Laure.  Del- 
phin,  married  to  Delphine  Bienvenu,  had  four  chil- 
dren. Caliste,  married  to  Isabel  Duverger,  had  eight 
children.     Hon.  Paul  Villere,  Vice  President  of  the 


ROUER  DE  VILLERAY  153 

Hibernia  Bank,  is  the  grandson  of  Caliste  Viller6  and 
Isabel  Duverger.  St.  Denis  de  Blanc  Villere,  a  noted 
citizen  and  the  bearer  of  two  famous  names,  is  also 
the  grandson  of  Caliste  Viller^.  His  father  was  the 
well-known  merchant,  Ernest  Viller^;  his  mother, 
xVngele  Bernard.  Felix  married  Eloise  Verret  and 
had  six  children.  Anatole,  married  to  F^licit^ 
Elmina  Forstal,  had  six  children.  Adele  married 
Hugiies  de  la  Vergne;  they  had  six  children.  L^o- 
cadie  married,  first,  Cyril  Fazende;  second,  Paul 
Lanusse. 

Governor  Viller^'s  eldest  son.  Major  R6n6  Gabriel 
Villere,  died  in  1855  on  his  plantation  in  the  Parish 
of  St.  Bernard,  in  the  same  house,  so  it  was  stated, 
in  which  he  had  been  taken  prisoner  by  the  British 
in  1815.  To  quote  a  mortuary  notice  which,  in  his 
case,  w^as  a  true  testimonial,  he  was  ^'a,  noble  repre- 
sentative of  the  virtues  and  high  qualities  of  the 
ancient  population.'^  He  was  buried  with  mihtary 
honors  in  the  old  St.  Louis  Cemetery. 

With  the  sole  exception  of  the  Delery  family,  the 
descendants  of  the  Chauvin  brothers,  the  Villere s 
count  more  descendants  in  active  business  life  in  the 
city  than  any  of  the  other  ^'foundation  families, '^ 
as  they  may  be  called.  Their  name  spreads  like  a 
fruitful  vine  over  all  the  genealogical  records  of  the 
old  prominent  Creole  famihes.* 

*  The  records  of  the  Viller6  family  were  kindly  furnished  the 
author  by  Madame  Fcrnand  Claiborne,  herself  a  representative  of 
the  direct  line  of  Joseph  Roy  Viller^.  Her  father  was  Alc6e  Villerd, 
her  mother  Delphine  Fleitas,  daughter  of  Paulin  Flcitas  and  Celes- 
tine  Jumonville  de  ViUiers.  She  is  married  to  Fernand  Claiborne, 
Esq.,  grandson  of  Governor  Claiborne.  Their  children  are:  Made- 
moiselle Clarisse  Claiborne,  and  Lieutenant  Omer  Claiborne,  in 
service  in  France  (A.  E.  F.). 


CHAPTER  VIII 
D'ARENSBOURG 

CHARLES  FREDERICK  D'ARENSBOURG 
arrived  in  Louisiana,  landing  at  Biloxi  in  1721, 
according  to  our  best  and  indeed  only  authority 
about  him.*  He  was  a  former  Swedish  officer  from 
the  town  of  Arensbourg  on  the  Island  of  Oesel  in  the 
Bay  of  Riga  which,  with  the  whole  province  of 
Livonia,  belonged  to  Sweden  up  to  the  year  1721, 
the  date  of  Charles  Frederick's  emigration  to 
Louisiana.  As  thirty  Swedish  officers  are  said  to 
have  accompanied  him,  as  Deiler  states,  it  may  be 
assumed  that  as  the  cession  of  Livonia  to  Russia 
occurred  in  1721,  they  all,  having  fought  on  the  side 
of  Sweden  against  Russia,  preferred  exile  to  Russifi- 
cation. 

According  to  tradition  among  his  descendants, 
d^Arensbourg  fought  at  the  Battle  of  Paltava,  on  the 
staff  of  Charles  XII  (1709),  and  fought  so  gallantly 
that  the  Swedish  King  presented  him  with  his  sword. 
On  the  surrender  of  the  Swedes,  the  Russian  General 
gallantly  refused  to  take  this  sword  from  the  young 
officer  and  he  brought  it  out  with  him  to  Louisiana. 

D'Arensbourg  came  to  his  new  country  with  a 
commission,  issued  in  Paris  by  the  "Compagnie  des 
Indes,'*  shortly  after  the  failure  of  the  Mississippi 
scheme  and  Law's  flight.    He  was  given  command  of 

•  J.  Hanno  Deiler.  "The  Settlement  of  the  German  Coast  of 
Louisiana." 

154 


Jl 


D'ARENSBOURG  155 

a  large  band  of  German  settlers,  awaiting  embarka- 
tion in  Havre  for  the  Law  concession  on  the  Arkansas 
River.  They  sailed  on  the  'Tortefaix"  and  arrived  in 
October  at  Biloxi,  bringing  with  them  the  news  of 
Law's  failure,  which  caused  great  consternation 
among  the  new  colonists. 

The  news  traveled  up  to  the  Arkansas  River, 
where  a  band  of  Germans  were  already  settled ;  they, 
abandoning  their  lands  and  crops,  took  to  their  boats 
in  a  panic,  and  hastened  to  Biloxi,  to  demand  im- 
mediate passage  back  to  their  fatherland.  Stopping 
on  the  way  at  New  Orleans,  where  Bienville  was  at 
work  on  his  proposed  city,  he  found  means  to  pacify 
them  and  induce  them  to  remain  in  the  colony  and 
join  the  fresh  arrivals  of  their  countrymen,  under 
d' Arensbourg ;  changing  the  location  of  their  settle- 
ment to  the  much  more  promising  one  of  the  rich 
alluvial  lands  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  about 
twenty  miles  above  New  Orleans  (comprised  to-day 
in  the  parishes  of  St.  John  Baptist  and  St.  Charles). 

It  seems  impossible  to  resist  the  temptation  to  give 
Hanno  Deiler's  moving  description  of  what  fol- 
lowed: 

"No  pen  can  describe,  nor  human  fancy  imagine,  the  hardships 
which  the  German  pioneers  of  Louisiana  suffered  even  after  they  had 
survived  the  perils  of  the  sea  and  epidemics  and  starvation  on  the 
sands  of  Biloxi.  No  wonder  that  so  many  perished.  Had  they 
been  of  a  less  hardy  race,  not  one  of  these  families  would  have 
survived. 

"It  should  be  remembered  that  the  land  assigned  to  them  was 
virgin  forest  in  the  heavy  alluvial  bottoms  of  the  Mississippi,  with 
their  tremendous  germinating  powers  awakened  by  a  semi-tropical 
sun.  Giant  oaks  with  wide  spreading  arms  and  gray  mossy  beards 
stood  there  as  if  from  eternity,  and  defied  the  axe  of  man.  Between 
them  arose  towering  pines  with  thick  undergrowth,  bushes  and 
shrubs  and  an  impenetrable  twist  of  running,  spinning,  and  climbing 


156  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

vines  under  whose  protection  lurked  a  hell  of  hostile  animals  and 
savage  men.  Leopards,  bears,  panthers,  wild  cats,  snakes  and  alli- 
gators; and  their  terrible  allies,  a  scorching  sun,  the  miasma  rising 
from  the  disturbed  virgin  soil,  and  the  floods  of  a  mighty  river — all 
these  combined  to  destroy  the  work  of  man  and  man  himself. 
There  were  no  levees  then,  no  protecting  dams,  and  only  too  often 
when  the  spring  floods  came,  caused  by  the  simultaneous  melting 
of  the  snow  in  the  vast  region  of  the  upper  course  of  the  Mississippi 
and  its  tributaries,  the  colonists  were  driven  to  climb  upon  the  roofs 
of  their  houses  and  up  into  trees,  and  hundreds  of  miles  of  fertile 
land  were  inundated.  .  .  .  There  is  in  Louisiana  a  popular  saying 
— heard  from  Creoles  when  they  speak  of  work  uncommonly  hard: 
*It  takes  German  people  to  do  that.'  " 

"Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  all  the  hardships  which  the  pioneers 
had  to  endure  and  the  difficulties  to  be  encountered,  German 
energy,  industry  and  perseverance  conquered  all;  and  although 
hundreds  perished,  the  survivors  wrested  from  the  soil  not  only  a 
bare  living  but  in  the  course  of  time  a  high  degree  of  prosperity  also. 
Early  travellers  who  came  dov/n  the  Mississippi,  describe  the  neat 
appearance  of  their  little  white  houses  which  stood  in  endless  num- 
bers on  both  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  and  they  also  tell  how  these 
thrifty  Germans  used  to  row  down  to  New  Orleans  in  their  boats, 
with  an  abundance  of  their  produce;  vegetables,  corn,  rice,  and, 
later,  also  indigo,  to  sell  their  goods  on  Sunday  mornings  in  front 
of  the  Cathedral;  and  how  at  times  when  non-producing  New 
Orleans  in  vain  waited  for  provision  ships  from  France  or  San 
Domingo,  these  German  peasants  more  than  once  saved  the  city 
from  heavy  famine."* 

Charles  Gayarre  relates  that  one  of  the  pleasures 
of  his  childhood  was  to  stand  on  the  levee  in  front  of 
his  grandfather's  plantation  above  the  city  and 
watch  of  a  Saturday  afternoon  the  long  procession 
of  skiffs,  from  the  Cote  des  Allemands,  "heavily 
laden  with  vegetables,  fruit,  poultry  and  eggs,  pass 
by  on  their  way  to  New  Orleans,  which  they  sup- 
plied with  farm  produce." 

♦  The  "Cote  dcs  Allemands"  was  dubbed,  in  short,"  La  Cote 
d'Or"  of  Louisiana. 


D'ARENSBOURG  157 

Laussat,  in  an  official  letter  to  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior,  Chaptal,  June,  1803,  adds  this  tribute  of 
praise : 

"What  is  called  the  'German  Coast'  is  the  most  industrious,  the 
most  populous,  the  most  at  ease,  the  most  upright,  the  most 
respected  part  of  the  inhabitants  of  this  colony." 

D'Arensbourg  obtained  a  concession  among  his 
German  settlers,  built  his  home  and  reared  his 
family  among  them,  sharing  their  joys  and  hard- 
ships. For  forty  years  he  served  them  as  judge  and 
conmiandant,  taking  creditable  part  in  all  .the  mili- 
tary activities  of  the  colony,  particularly  in  the 
defensive  measures  against  the  Indians  after  the 
Natchez  massacre.  He  took  a  prominent  stand 
against  the  giving  over  of  the  province  by  France 
to  Spain.  So  competent  an  authority  as  Deiler 
says  that  ''the  revolution  of  1768  against  UUoa 
began  on  the  German  Coast,  and  it  was  d'Arens- 
bourg's  word  and  his  influence  that  enabled  Vil- 
lere  to  march  with  four  hundred  Germans  upon 
New  Orleans  and  take  the  Tchoupitoulas  Gate.'' 
After  this,  joined  by  the  Acadians  under  Noyan  and 
the  Tchoupitoulas  militia  under  de  Lery,  they 
marched  to  the  Place  d'Armes  to  support  the  demand 
of  Lafreniere  to  give  Ulloa  three  days'  time  to  leave 
Louisiana. 

Among  the  six  revolutionists  condemned  to  death 
by  O'Reilly,  two  were  married  to  granddaughters  of 
d'Arensbourg.  Tradition  has  it  that  O'Reilly  in- 
tended also  to  have  d'Arensbourg  executed,  but 
he  was  saved  through  the  intercession  of  For- 
stall,  under  whose  uncle  O'Reilly  had  served  in  the 
Hibernian  regiment  in  Spain. 


1 ' 


168  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

D'Arensbourg  was  made  a  Chevalier  of  St.  Louis  in 
1763.  He  died  in  1779,  a  patriarch  of  eighty-four, 
surrounded  by  his  children  and  grandchildren,  and 
the  children  and  grandchildren  of  the  German 
settlers  that  he  had  led  to  Louisiana  when  he  was  a 
young  man  of  thirty-one. 

He  married,  in  the  colony,  Catherine  Mextrine, 
according  to  Hanno  Deiler,  a  daughter  of  one  of  the 
German  settlers.  The  eldest  son  married  Frangoise 
de  la  Vergne;  the  second,  EUzabeth  Duclos  de  Selles. 
P^lagie  married  Jacques  de  la  Chaise,  son  of  the 
King's  Commissary.  A  third  daughter,  whose  first 
name  is  unknown,  became  Madame  de  *^Bois  Clair." 

Of  the  Swedish  officers  who  accompanied  d'Arens- 
bourg  no  trace  remains  in  Louisiana  history.  In  the 
course  of  centuries  the  Germans  have  been  absorbed 
in  the  Creole  population  (as  were  the  descendants  of 
d'Arensbourg)  and  can  only  be  traced  in  Louisiana 
records  by  the  curious  philologist  who,  like  Hanno 
Deiler,  cares  to  follow  the  windings  and  transmuta- 
tions of  these  names,  as  they  travel  upward  to  bloom 
on  the  highest  branches  of  local  genealogical  trees, 
attached  to  representatives  of  most  prominent  and 
important  governmental  and  social  personalities. 

Of  the  fate  of  the  famous  Charles  XII  sword,  the 
following  story  is  told.  The  Chevalier  was  a  model 
of  virtuous  dignity  and  of  the  most  perfect  moral 
rectitude,  giving  an  example  to  his  eldest  son  which 
was  not  followed.  Before  his  father's  death,  the 
bearer  of  his  name  and  title  asked  for  the  sword, 
claiming  it  as  his  by  right.  The  stern  old  Swede 
took  it,  and,  standing  up,  broke  it  across  his  knee, 
handing  the  fragments  to  his  son  with  the  words: 
^*You  are  not  worthy  to  wear  it!'' 


CHAPTER  IX 
DE  LA  CHAISE 

JACQUES  DE  LA  CHAISE  left  behind  him  to 
Louisiana  the  traditions  of  an  interesting  and 
most  impressive  personaHty,  joined  to  the  reputation 
of  a  perfect  official  or  representative  type  of  the  old 
French  magistracy.     He  was  one  of  the  two  com- 
missioners sent  to  Louisiana  by  the  Company  of  the 
Indies  in  1722,  charged  with  inquisitorial  powers  to 
take  information  on  the  conduct  of  all  the  officers 
and  administrators  of  the  colony,  and  to  make  a 
report    to    the    government.     The    brother    com- 
missioner, de  Saunoy,  dying  shortly  afterwards,  de 
la  Chaise  remained  invested  with  the  full  power  of 
the  joint  commission.     He  met,  as  was  to  be  ex- 
pected,  fierce  opposition  in  the  colony,   but  pro- 
ceeded unflinchingly  in  the  discharge  of  his  duties. 
Gayarr6,  evidently  speaking  from  intimate  knowl- 
edge, calls  him  ''one  of  the  worthiest  men  the  colony 
ever  possessed,'^  giving  the  following  description  of 
him: 

"He  was  of  patrician  birth,  a  nephew  of  the  confessor  of  Louis 
XIV.  The  Chateau  d'Aix,  the  feudal  castle  of  the  family,  was  situ- 
ated in  the  Province  of  Forez.  His  father  was  the  son  of  George 
d'Aix,  Seigneur  de  la  Chaise,  who  married  R6n6e  de  Rochefort, 
daughter  of  one  of  the  noblest  houses  of  France.  Members  of  the 
family  distinguished  themselves  in  the  army  of  France.  In  the  time 
of  the  Regency  one  of  them  died,  a  Lieutenant-General,  leaving  a 
reputation  for  uncompromising  integrity  and  unflinching  attachment 
to  duty." 

159 


160  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  i 

Jacques  de  la  Chaise,  to  quote  Gayarr6  again: 

"was  not  gifted  with  superior  intellect,  but  he  was  a  solid  square 
'block  of  honesty'  who  moved  solidly  onward  in  the  accomplishment 
of  his  mission,  regardless  of  persons  and  consequences.  The  never 
ceasing  repose  of  his  handsome  features  was  an  unmistakable  indica- 
tion of  the  unruffled  serenity  of  his  soul  and  the  dignity  of  his  person; 
and  the  measured  propriety  of  his  deportment  and  actions  was  such 
that  it  checked  in  others  the  ebuUition  of  passion,  forcing  discussion 
to  be  courteous  and  anger,  itself,  to  be  respectful.  With  the  blandest 
urbanity  but  with  unswerving  firmness,  he  called  every  one  to  ac- 
count and  met  serenely  the  opposition  of  those  whom  he  goaded  into 
fury  by  his  steadiness  of  purpose.    .    .    ."* 

Bienville  was  recalled  to  France  to  answer  the 
charges  which  his  implacable  enemies  had  for  years 
been  bringing  against  him;  and  his  cousin,  Bois- 
briant,  appointed  Governor  ad  interim,  on  de  la 
Chaise's  report,  he  also  was  simmioned  to  France. 
Three  members  of  the  Council  were  dismissed  from 
office;  the  Attorney-General's  resignation  was  de- 
manded, and  his  office  suppressed  for  the  time  being. 
The  disgraced  officers  were  ordered  to  appear  before 
Perier  and  de  la  Chaise,  and  to  stand  trial  for  their 
official  acts.  Instructions  were  also  issued  to  Perier, 
that  he  should  be  the  executive  and  military  com- 
mander of  the  colony,  but  that  de  la  Chaise  should 
have  official  supervision  of  its  police  and  executive 
judicial  administration. 

It  was  a  gloomy  period  in  the  history  of  Louisiana, 
and  the  distress  of  the  colony  had  reached  an  acute 
stage.  The  supplies  sent  from  France  failing,  famine 
began  to  threaten,  and  the  distress  was  increased  by  a 
hurricane,  which  caused  the  most  extensive  damage; 
the  paper  currency  had  been  reduced  to  such  a  state 

*  His  portrait  and  that  of  his  wife  are  possessed  by  Colonel 
Hugues  de  la  Vergne. 


DE  LA  CHAISE  161 

of  discredit  that  it  ceased  to  pass ;  hence  a  cessation 
of  business.  To  make  the  situation  worse,  the 
Natchez  Indians,  goaded  by  the  tyranny  of  the  French 
officers  over  them,  began  murdering  and  pillaging 
traveling  traders,  while  they  secretly  prepared  for  a 
general  revolt  and  massacre  of  all  the  whites  in  their 
land.  This  was  bloodily  and  successfully  accom- 
plished in  1729. 

It  would  seem,  from  the  following  letter,  that  at 
the  time  of  the  massacre,  de  la  Chaise  was  making 
one  of  his  official  tours  of  inspection,  accompanied 
by  Governor  Perier: 

Fort  Chartres,  AprU  14th,  1730.* 

"The  dugout  of  M.  Perier  and  M.  de  la  Chaise  made  —  leagues 
to  the  place  in  all  haste  to  advise  us  of  the  massacre  of  the  French 
estabUshed  at  Natchez.    .    .    . 

"Terrisse  de  Ternan." 

Le  Page  Dupratz  concludes  his  account  of  the 
Natchez  massacre  with  a  panegyric  on  de  la  Chaise: 

"Those  orphans  and  widows  who  escaped  from  the  Natchez  mas- 
sacre would  be  extremely  ungrateful  if  they  did  not  all  their  lives 
pray  for  the  soul  of  that  good  and  charitable  man." 

But  not  only  on  the  widows  and  orphans  were  his 

heart  and  mind  directed,  as  the  following  document, 
remarkable  for  its  time,  shows: 

"To  the  Councillors  of  the  Superior  Council  of  the  Province  of 
Louisiana: 

"Exposed  to  a  disaster  like  that  which  happened  at  Natchez, 
where  all  the  inhabitants  were  inhumanly  massacred,  obliged  to 
have  recourse  to  all  sorts  of  means  to  baffle  these  barbarians,  the 
most  pressing  need  was  speedily  to  advise  the  distant  posts  to  be 
on  the  alert.     M.  Perier  found  men  of  good  will  who  offered  to 

*  Wrong  date.  The  Natchez  massacre  took  place  in  1729;  de  la 
Chaise  died  in  February,  1730. — Author. 


162  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

undertake  the  perilous  journey.  They  were  accompanied  by  a  few 
negroes,  chosen  from  among  the  boldest,  and  they  were  promised 
freedom  if  they  inviolably  kept  their  word.  There  are  also  several 
other  negroes  who  at  the  time  of  the  Natchez  siege  gave  proofs  of 
valor  and  attachment  to  the  French  nation,  and  exposed  them- 
selves to  peril  with  intrepidity.  Some  were  even  wounded,  and  as 
this  is  a  very  important  affair,  and  as  it  is  a  question  of  holding 
the  negroes  and  attaching  them,  so  that  we  may  rely  on  them  on 
such  occasions,  the  question  is  to  find  means  the  best  calculated 
to  attain  that  end.  We  beUeve  we  cannot  reward  them  otherwise 
than  by  granting  them  freedom.  That  will  give  others  a  great 
desire  to  deserve  similar  favors  by  material  services;  and,  besides, 
a  company  may  be  formed  of  free  negroes  that  can  be  placed  in 
the  posts  which  the  commander  will  judge  proper,  which  company 
is  to  be  always  ready  to  march  on  short  notice, 

"As  there  were  then  a  great  number  of  negroes  at  Natchez,  I  do 
not  exactly  know  who  did  best  and  who  will  be  rewarded;  therefore 
they  will  be  chosen  from  the  reports  and  testimony  of  the  officers 
in  this  war  and  on  the  account  given  by  them  to  M.  Perier,  who 
will  choose  them.     We  cannot  do  better  than  to  refer  this  to  him  ji 
and  beg  him  to  demand  an  account  of  their  good  and  bad  qualities.   j| 
This  considered,  may  it  be  your  pleasure  to  grant  freedom  to  the  J 
negroes  who  went  to  Illinois,  and  to  whom  M.  Perier  judges  it  to   j 
be  proper  to  give  the  same.    In  the  report  made  to  him,  conditions 
and  clauses  prescribed  by  the  'Black  Code'  must  be  adhered  to."* 

De  la  Chaise  found  at  Natchez  Le  Page  du  Pratz, 
the  historian  who  had  been  living  among  the  Indians 
there  for  eight  years,  perfecting  the  invaluable  study 
of  the  tribe,  their  language  and  their  customs,  that 
fill  the  best  pages  of  his  history.  This  historian, 
who  was  also  a  botanist,  made  a  study  of  the  medi- 
cinal plants  used  by  the  Natchez,  and  a  collection 
of  three  hundred  of  them,  which  the  enlightened  de 
la  Chaise  sent  to  France,  with  a  Memoir  on  the  sub- 
ject by  du  Pratz.    The  plants  were  confided  to  the 

*  From  the  Louisiana  Historical  documents. 


DE  LA  CHAISE  1G3 

Jardin  des  Plantes,  of  Paris,  where  there  still  exists 
a  record  of  them. 

Before  Bienville's  departure  (1724),  and  almost 
the  last  act  under  his  rule,  was  the  promulgation  of 
the  ''Code  Noir"  by  the  Superior  Council.  De  la 
Chaise's  signature  follows  that  of  Bienville  on  this 
most  important  document.  In  the  division  of  au- 
thority between  Perier  who  succeeded  Bienville  and 
de  la  Chaise,  as  Dart  says: 

"De  la  Chaise  became  apparently  the  sole  law  officer  of  the  Crown, 
at  any  rate  for  the  time  being,  and  devoted  himself  earnestly  to  his 
judicial  duties,  setthng  disputes  and  simplifying  the  law " 

His  power  to  override  constitution  and  customs 
is  illustrated  by  Gayarre,  in  the  action  of  the  Su- 
perior Council  on  a  question  of  community.  To 
continue  the  interesting  quotation  from  Dart: 

"There  had  been  intermarriages  between  French  emigrants  and 
Indian  women,  and,  upon  the  death  of  the  husband,  it  was  usual  for 
the  wife  to  return  to  her  people,  failing  to  pay  the  debts  of  the  dece- 
dent and  carrying  off  the  property  to  her  tribe,  without  observing  the 
formalities  required  by  and  inherent  to  the  local  laws  of  succession. 
De  la  Chaise  recommended  and  the  Superior  Council  decreed  that 
thereafter  on  the  death  of  a  Frenchman  married  to  an  Indian  woman, 
the  property  left  by  the  decedent  should  be  administered  by  a  tutor 
if  there  were  minor  children;  if  none,  by  a  curator  to  vacant  estates, 
who  should  pay  annually  to  the  widow  one  third  of  the  revenue  of  the 
estate;  which  payment  should  cease  io  case  she  returned  to  dwell 
with  her  tribe." 

In  the  records  of  the  Superior  Council  is  preserved 
an  instance  of  de  la  Chaise's  unswerving  directness 
of  purpose  in  pursuit  of  justice.  He  proceeds  against 
Bienville  in  the  one  clearly  proven  instance  of  injus- 

*  "The  Legal  Institutions  of  Louisiana."     W.  P.  Dart,  Esq. 


164  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

tice  recorded  by  history  against  Bienville,  in  evicting 
Pauger,  the  Royal  Engineer,  from  the  land  upon 
which  he  had  settled  and  which  he  had  improved. 

Petitioning  as  executor  for  the  late  M.  de  Pauger, 
de  la  Chaise  recalls  the  land  suit  between  M.  de 
Bienville  and  M.  de  Pauger,  wherein  M.  de  Pauger 
was  worsted,  on  the  subject  of  compensation  for  im- 
provements on  the  land  at  issue.  The  sum  of  one 
thousand  francs  was  allowed  but  it  was  afterwards 
claimed  by  M.  de  Bienville,  against  the  valid  rights 
of  Pauger's  estate.  ^^Let  M.  de  Bienville  be  cited 
in  the  person  of  his  nephew,  M.  de  Noyan,  and  the 
thousand  francs  be  entered  to  the  account  of  the 
estate."  It  is  painful  to  record  that  the  Superior 
Council  sustained  Bienville  and  not  his  ill-treated 
antagonist  in  the  decision  of  the  case. 

De  la  Chaise  died  in  1730,  his  sudden  death  giving 
rise  to  dark  rumors  of  poison  by  those  who  had 
cause  to  fear  his  investigations.  He  was  accompanied 
to  Louisiana  by  his  wife,  Marguerite  le  Cailly,  who, 
according  to  a  popular  report,  still  beUeved  and 
repeated  (although  unproven),  was  related  to  the 
family  of  Jeanne  d'Arc. 

According  to  the  Census  of  1726,  de  la  Chaise,  with 
his  wife  and  two  children,  occupied  a  large  house  on 
Chartres  Street.     He  left  the  following  children : 

Marie  Louise,  born  in  Nantes;  married  in  1729  to 
Louis  Prat,  physician  and  Councillor,  of  the  Superior 
Council,  ^'a  man  of  regular  habits,  approved  honesty, 
and  a  practical  Catholic/'  according  to  the  report 
of  the  Clerk  of  the  Council. 

Alexandrine,  born  in  Nantes;  married  to  Jean 
Pradel,  Captain  of  Infantry. 

F^licit6,  born  in  Nantes;  married  in  1732  to  Louis 
Dubreuil  Villars. 


DE  LA  CHAISE  165 

Marie  Marguerite,  married  to  Louis  Joseph  Bizo- 
ton  de  St.  Martin,  ''officier  de  Marine/' 

Jacques,  married  to  Marguerite  d'Arensbourg.* 

Councillor  Prat,  acting  as  guardian  of  the  minor 
children,  petitioned  the  Superior  Council  in  June, 
1730,  for  authority  to  pay  them  quarterly  install- 
ments yearly,  advanced  from  their  portions  of  the 
estate  for  their  support,  ^'as  the  Council  may  ap- 
prove" ;  Madame  Pradel  also  to  receive  an  allowance 
up  to  the  date  of  her  marriage. 

The  estate  of  de  la  Chaise  showed  no  accumulation 
of  wealth  during  his  terms  of  office.  The  inventory 
of  it  is  in  the  archives  of  the  Louisiana  Historical 
Society,  but  unfortunately  is  not  available  for 
scrutiny.  His  plantation,  situated  above  the  city, 
facing  the  river,  was  not  a  large  one,  its  working 
force  consisting  of  only  thirty-five  slaves.  The  upper 
districts  of  the  city  were  known  at  one  time  as  de  la 
Chaise,  Gayarre  mentioning  that  the  de  Bore 
plantation  was  situated  in  de  la  Chaise.  One  street 
in  New  Orleans  remains  to  bear  the  name. 

A  few  outstanding  debts  were  presented  to  the 
Council  for  payment:  One  for  two  hundred  and 
twenty  francs  due  on  'Vig''  supplies;  another  for 
thirty  francs  for  making  a  '^fine  shirt"  for  the  late 
M.  de  la  Chaise.  And,  again,  ^'R.  B.  Petit,  of  the 
S.  J.,  claims  two  hundred  and  twenty-eight  francs  for 
some  wrought  iron  made  by  the  Society's  blacksmith 
for  use  on  the  de  la  Chaise  plantation." 

Auguste  de  la  Chaise,  the  son  of  Jacques  de  la 
Chaise  and  Marguerite  d'Arensbourg,  attained  a 
lurid  notoriety  in  his  day  as  a  member  of  the  Society 
of  French  Jacobins,  established  in  Philadelphia  in 
1794.      The    distribution    of    their    inflammatory 

*  Parish  Register  of  St.  Louis  Cathedral. 


166  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

addresses  in  New  Orleans  through  secret  agents 
caused  great  uneasiness  and  alarm  to  Carondelet. 
The  alarm  was  increased  by  Carondelet's  knowledge 
of  the  efforts  being  made  by  Genet,  the  French  Minis- 
ter, to  raise  an  expedition  against  Louisiana,  with 
the  aid  of  the  discontented  people  of  Kentucky  and 
Tennessee.  De  la  Chaise  was  sent  to  Kentucky 
by  Genet  to  recruit  forces,  and  he  was  counted  upon 
to  lead  the  invaders  down  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi. 

Gayarre  writes  that  of  all  the  agents  employed  by 
Genet,  de  la  Chaise  was  the  one  most  feared  by 
Carondelet,  on  account  of  his  rash  intrepidity,  his 
indefatigable  activity,  and  his  exquisite  address; 
and  because,  being  a  native  of  Louisiana,  and  be- 
longing to  one  of  its  most  powerful  families,  he  exer- 
cised considerable  influence  in  the  city.* 

But,  as  we  know,  the  firm  interference  of  Washing- 
ton checked  the  intrigue  of  Genet,  and  the  revolu- 
tionary plan  aborted.  In  his  disappointment,  de  la 
Chaise  abandoned  his  hopes  of  wresting  Louisiana 
from  the  power  of  Spain.  He  retired  from  Kentucky 
and  took  service  in  the  French  Army,  leaving  behind 
him  this  document  as  his  last  political  testament  and 
will: 

Address  of  de  la  Chaise,  laid  before  the  Democratic 
Society  of  Lexington: 

"Citizens: 

"Unforseen  events,  the  effects  of  causes  which  it  is  unnecessary 
to  develop  here,  have  stopped  the  march  of  two  thousand  brave 
Kentuckians,  who,  strong  in  their  courage,  in  the  justness  of  their 
rights,  in  the  purity  of  their  cause,  and  in  the  general  assent  of  their 
fcllow-citizcns,  and  convinced  of  the  brotherly  dispositions  of  the 
Louisianians,  waited  only  for  their  orders  to  go  and  take  away,  by 

*  "Spanish  Domination,"     Gayarr^, 


f 


DE  LA  CHAISE  1G7 

the  irrcsistable  power  of  their  arms,  from  those  despotic  usurpers,  the 
Spaniards,  the  possession  of  the  Mississippi,  secure  for  their  country 
the  navigation  of  it,  break  the  chains  of  the  Americans  and  of  their 
French  brethren  in  the  province  of  Louisiana,  hoist  up  the  flag  of 
hbcrty  in  the  name  of  the  French  llepubhc,  and  hiy  the  foundations 
of  the  prosperity  and  happiness  of  two  nations  destined  by  nature 
to  be  but  one  and  so  situated  as  to  be  the  most  happy  in  the  universe. 
"Citizens,  the  greater  the  attempts  you  have  made  towards  the 
success  of  that  expedition,  the  more  sensible  you  must  be  of  the 
impediments  which  delay  its  execution,  and  the  more  energetic 
should  your  efforts  be  towards  procuring  new  means  of  success. 
There  is  one  from  which  I  expect  the  greatest  advantages,  and  which 
may  be  decisive — that  is  an  address  to  the  national  convention,  or  to 
the  Executive  Council  of  France.  In  the  name  of  my  countrymen, 
of  Louisiana,  in  the  name  of  your  own  interest,  I  dare  once  more 
ask  you  this  new  proof  of  patriotism. 

"Being  deprived  of  my  dearest  hopes,  and  of  the  pleasure,  after 
an  absence  of  fourteen  years  and  a  proscription  of  three,  of  returning 
to  the  bosom  of  my  family,  my  friends,  and  my  countrymen,  I 
have  only  one  course  to  follow — that  of  going  to  France  and  express- 
ing to  the  representatives  of  the  French  people  the  cry,  the  general 
wish  of  the  Louisianians  to  become  part  of  the  French  Republic — 
informing  them  at  the  same  time,  of  the  most  ardent  desire  which  the 
Kentuckians  have  had,  and  will  continue  to  have  forever,  to  take 
the  most  active  part  in  any  undertaking  tending  to  open  to  them  the 
free  navigation  of  the  Mississippi.  The  French  Republicans,  in  their 
sublime  constitutional  act,  have  proffered  their  protection  to  all 
those  nations  who  may  have  the  courage  to  shake  off  the  yoke  of 
tyranny.  The  Louisianians  have  the  most  sacred  right  to  it.  They 
are  French  but  they  have  been  sacrificed  to  despotism  by  arbitrary 
power.  The  honor,  the  glory,  the  duty  of  the  National  Convention 
is  to  grant  them  their  powerful  support. 

"Every  petition  or  plan  relative  to  that  important  object  would 
meet  with  the  highest  consideration.  An  address  from  the  Demo- 
cratic Society  of  Lexington  would  give  it  greater  weight. 

"Accept  citizens  the  farewell,  not  the  last,  of  a  brother  who  is 
determined  to  sacrifice  everything  in  his  power  for  the  liberty  of  his 
country,  and  the  prosperity  of  the  generous  inhabitants  of  Kentucky. 
Salut  en  la  -patrie, 

"AuGUSTE  LA  Chaise." 


168  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

De  Pontalba,  in  a  letter  to  his  wife,  October  13th, 
1794,  speaking  of  the  general  uneasiness  in  the  city 
over  its  impending  Jacobin  uprising,  adds: 

"Madame  Marre  has  just  come  from  Charlestown;  she  has  been 
to  the  Government  (house)  and  repeated  that  la  Chaise  told  her  in 
New  England,  where  he  is,  that  it  was  he  who  fomented  the  troubles 
which  we  had  had  in  Point  Coupee,  adding  that  he  had  not  suc- 
ceeded that  time,  but  that  he  would  do  better  next  time;  he  told  her 
he  was  only  waiting  for  his  dispatches  as  Consul  of  France,  to  come 
here  by  way  of  Kentucky,  and  that  he  would  show  there  instructions 
that  would  make  the  negroes  know  what  their  rights  were. 

"Madame  Marre  protested  that  Louisiana  was  his  country,  that 
his  parents  were  there  and  his  friends,  and  that  this  should  deter 
him  from  bringing  trouble  there,  with  horror,  ruin,  and  assassination; 
he  replied  that  humanity  came  before  such  titles,  and  that  the  negro 
men  were  his  compatriots  as  well  as  the  white  men.  Madame  Marre 
gave  the  names  of  persons  who  heard  this  conversation;  they  are  all 
here  and  their  declarations  will  be  taken,  a  summary  made,  and 
afterwards,  orders  will  be  given  to  high  and  low,  that  he  must  not 
be  allowed  to  enter  the  colony  if  he  seeks  to.  He  has  done  every- 
thing that  he  could  to  excite  the  negress  of  Madame  Marre;  telling 
her  she  was  free,  that  slavery  was  horrible,  that  no  one  had  the  right 
to  hold  her  in  it — either  her  or  any  of  those  held  so  in  Louisiana. 
Such  a  subject  is  a  great  curse  to  this  province." 

Auguste  de  la  Chaise  married  the  daughter  of 
Pierre  Toucher,  the  granddaughter  of  de  Bore. 
There  is  no  further  record  in  Louisiana  of  the  name. 
He  perished  in  an  ambuscade  in  St.  Domingo  in 
1803,  shortly  after  his  elevation  to  the  grade  of 
General.  Gayarre  concludes  his  account  of  him  with 
the  not  very  enthusiastic  praise : 

"Had  not  death  stopped  him  in  his  career,  when  he  was  still 
in  the  meridian  of  life,  it  is  to  be  presumed,  from  what  he  had  already 
accomplished,  he  would  have  risen  to  higher  honors;  and  might  have 
left  behind  him  a  memory  of  which  his  native  country,  Louisiana, 
would  have  been  proud." 


CHAPTER  X 
LAFRENIERE 

NICOLAS  DE  LAFRfiNIERE  stands  in  the  his- 
tory of  Louisiana  and  in  the  annals  of  New 
Orleans  upon  a  pedestal  that  raises  his  heroic  gfiure 
even  above  that  of  Bienville,  whose  long  devoted  life 
of  hard  service  missed  the  consecration  of  a  glorious 
death. 

Lafreniere,  like  Bienville,  belonged  to  a  family 
that  seemed  sent  by  history  into  the  new  country  on 
a  mission. 

Like  the  Lemoynes,  the  Chauvins  came  from 
France  to  the  new  world  to  seek  their  fortune  in  the 
strenuous  pioneer  days  of  Canada.  Pierre  Chauvin, 
a  native  of  Anjou,  the  first  of  the  name,  son  of  R^n^ 
and  Catherine  Avard  de  Solesne,  lived  in  Montreal 
in  1658,  receiving  his  grant  of  land  in  1654. 

He  married  Marthe  Autreuil,  daughter  of  Ren6 
and  Frangoise  Lachaunerlin.  Four  of  their  seven 
sons  followed  Bienville  to  Louisiana.  Like  the 
Lemoynes,  they  affixed  to  their  family  names  titular 
designations:  De  Lery,  Beaulieu,  de  Lafreniere, 
Boisclair,  and  the  like. 

As  Ulloa,  in  his  report  upon  the  insurrection  in 
Louisiana,  succinctly  states: 

"Of  the  common  people  Bienville  brought  over  with  him  were 
four  brothers  who  afterwards  assumed  different  surnames  in  Louis- 
iana, one  causing  himself  to  be  called  Lafreniere;  the  other  Lery; 
the  third,  Beaulieu;  the  fourth,  Chauvin.     These  four  Canadians 

169 


170  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  f\ 

were  so  low  in  extraction  and  had  so  little  education,  that  they  could     { 
not  write  and  had  come  with  an  axe  on  their  shoulders  to  live  by 
their  manual  labor.    The  sons  of  these  men  are  now  the  chiefs  of  the 
rebeUion." 

The  four  brothers  were: 
Jacques  (married  to  Jeanne  Dauville) ; 
Joseph  de  L^ry  (married  to  Hypolite  Mercier) ; 
Nicolas    Lafreniere*    (married    to    Marguerite 

Le  Sueur) ; 
Louis  Chauvin  de  Beaulieu  (married  to  Charlotte 
Dural). 
There  were  two  daughters,  Barbe  Therese  (mar- 
ried to  Ignace  Hubert  de  Bellair)   and  Michelle 
Chauvin  (married  to  Jacques  Nepveu). 

During  the  hard  epoch  of  the  settlement  of  the 
colony,  when  Bienville  had  to  maintain  himself 
against  Spaniards,  English  and  Indians  as  well  as 
against  domestic  foes,  and  fight  no  less  strenuously 
against  starvation  when  the  colony  was  forgotten  or 
neglected  by  the  mother  country,  he  found  in  the 
men  with  the  axe  on  their  shoulders,  the  illiterate, 
hardy  Canadian  ^'coureurs  de  bois,'^  his  most  effec- 
tive fighters  against  overwhelming  odds.  Indefati- 
gable in  daring  enterprise,  courageous  beyond  all 
tests,  indomitably  loyal,  unconquerable  by  famine, 
they,  and  not  the  feeble  military  garrison  provided 
by  the  Royal  Government,  held  the  province  for 
France,  and  kept  the  fleur-de-lis  flying  over  the  fort 
at  Mobile. 

The  Chauvins  are  met  in  historical  chronicles 
during  this  period  whenever  and  wherever  need  was 

*  A  recently  discovered  document  in  the  Louisiana  Historical 
Society  collection  states  that  Lafr6ni^re,  after  his  arrival  in  the 
colony,  learned  to  read  and  write  in  four  months. 


LAP  RM  I  ERE  171 

found  for  their  services,  if  not  in  the  lists  of  military 
promotions  or  awards  of  honors. 

In  1716,  when  Louisiana  was  under  the  regime  of 
the  Crozat  Charter,  St.  Denis,  it  may  be  recalled, 
was  sent  from  Mobile  to  Mexico  in  an  attempt  to 
create  an  opening  for  French  trade  with  the  Spanish 
provinces.  After  many  adventures,  military  and 
amorous,  St.  Denis  returned  to  Mobile  to  report 
the  utter  failure  of  his  commercial  effort,  but  the 
complete  success  of  his  love  affair  with  the  daughter 
of  the  Spanish  Viceroy,  whom  he  married  and  left 
at  the  Presidio  del  Norte  to  await  his  return. 

The  three  Chauvin  brothers,  De  L6ry,  Lafr^niere 
and  Beaulieu,  were  then  dispatched  with  merchan- 
dise from  Mobile  to  engage  in  trade  with  Mexico. 
They  acquitted  themselves  less  romantically,  but, 
balked  by  Spanish  vigilance,  they  met  with  no  better 
commercial  success  than  St.  Denis. 

The  Chauvins  followed  Bienville  from  Mobile  to 
Biloxi,  and  to  the  proposed  site  of  the  city  of  New 
Orleans,  there  selecting  for  themselves  choice  con- 
cessions in  the  Tchoupitoulas  district,  where  they 
established  plantations.  Working  in  their  bold, 
energetic,  enterprising  way,  they  soon  became  known 
as  money-makers.  On  a  census  taken  at  the  time, 
de  le  Roy  (Del^ry)  and  Bellair  are  mentioned  as  set- 
tled on  the  immense  concession  that  Bienville  him- 
self had  obtained,  extending  from  New  Orleans  to 
the  Tchoupitoulas,  and  upon  this  settlement  lived 
Chauvin  Delery  with  three  children,  and  Chauvin 
de  Lafr^niere,  who  also  had  a  wife  and  three  children. 

There  is  record  before  the  Superior  Council,  in 
1724,  of  a  sharp  legal  dispute  between  the  Chauvins 
and  the  owner  of  the  neighboring  plantation,  M. 


Ill 

172  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  ; 

Ceard,  over  the  digging  of  a  ditch  and  the  raising  of  a  j 
levee  which  caused  an  overflow  on  the  Ceard  lands.  1 
In  spite  of  Lafreniere's  spirited  defense,  the  Council  { 
decided  against  him,  ordering  him  to  build  a  coffer  | 
dike  for  the  protection  of  Ceard's  lands  under  the  i 
supervision  of  Broutin,  the  Royal  Engineer — the  j 
costs  of  the  court  to  be  paid  by  the  Chauvin  brothers.     ; 

Nicolas  Chauvin  de  Lafreniere,  the  third  brother, 
had  married  Marguerite  Le  Sueur.    Their  son  be-    , 
came  Louisiana's  famous  man.    Marguerite  Le  Sueur     • 
was  presumably  (but  only  presumably)  the  daughter    ' 
of  the  celebrated  explorer  of  the  Upper  Mississippi;     ' 
and  the  ardent  adventurer  in  search  of  copper  mines. 
He  was  a  Canadian  and  had  followed  Iberville  to     | 
Louisiana,  where  he  died,  leaving  his  wife  and  family 
in  Mobile. 

There  exists,  unfortunately,  no  data  concerning 
the  early  days  of  Lafreniere's  childhood.  Even  the 
date  of  his  birth  is  uncertain  and  can  only  be  guessed 
at  approximately  as  1720.  He  was,  doubtless,  ' 
one  of  the  three  children  that  were  taken  to  the 
plantation  on  the  Tchoupitoulas  Road  and  he  must 
have  received  the  elements  of  his  education  from 
some  primary  instructor  such  as  generally  at  that 
time  kept  a  small  school  for  the  children  of  planters 
in  the  neighborhood  of  rich  plantations. 

We  come  into  the  light  of  historic  certainty  with 
the  authoritative  statement  of  Gayarre  that  Lafren- 
iere was  sent  to  France  for  his  education  and  there, 
during  his  long  sojourn,  studied  civil  law.  He  mar- 
ried Marguerite  Hubert  de  Belair,  a  cousin,  daughter 
of  Ignace  Hubert  and  Barbe  Therese  Chauvin,  half 
sister  of  Joseph  Roy  Viller^. 

The  register  of  the  Cathedral  contains  the  record 


LAFRMIERE  173 

of  the  baptism  of  two  daughters :  Catherine  Chauvin 
de  Lafreniere,  born  in  1750;  and  Marguerite  Cather- 
ine de  Lafreniere,  born  in  1753.  The  latter  married 
in  1767  Jean  Baptiste  August  de  Noyan,  captain  of 
cavah-y,  son  of  Augustin  Payen  de  Noyan,  Chevaher 
of  St.  Louis,  a  Lieutenant  of  the  King,  and  nephew  of 
Bienville. 

In  1740,  Lafr^niere's  name,  as  Counsellor  of  the 
Superior  Council,  figures  among  witnesses  of  the 
marriage  contract  of  his  cousin,  Delery  des  Islet, 
Charlotte  Faucon  du  Manoir.  Gayarre  mentions, 
without  explanation,  that  he  returned  to  Louisiana 
in  1763  on  the  same  ship  with  d'Abbadie,  the  Gover- 
nor newly  appointed  to  succeed  Kerlerec,  carrying 
in  his  pocket  his  appointment  as  Attorney-General 
and  the  decree  of  expulsion  to  be  executed  against 
the  Jesuits. 

They  landed  in  New  Orleans  in  June,  1763.  The 
decree  against  the  Jesuits  was  published  at  once.  It 
restated  merely  the  decree  that  was  being  executed 
in  Europe  against  the  order;  that  as  the  institution 
of  the  Jesuits  was  hostile  to  the  Royal  authority, 
public  peace  and  safety,  their  vows  were  proclaimed 
mil;  they  were  prohibited  to  call  themselves  there- 
after by  the  name  of  Jesuits  and  to  wear  the  garb. 
All  their  property,  except  some  books  and  wearing 
apparel,  were  to  be  seized  and  sold  at  public  auction ; 
their  sacred  vessels  were  to  be  dehvered  to  the 
Capuchin  Fathers ;  their  chapels  were  to  be  demolished, 
their  cemeteries  destroyed  and  their  priests  ordered  to 
return  to  France  by  the  first  ship  ready  to  depart. 

According  to  the  Relations  of  the  Jesuits,  and  the 
authorities  of  the  time,  the  execution  of  the  decree 
by  the  young,   newly  appointed  Attorney  General 


I! 

174  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

lacked  nothing  in  stern  vigor,  although  he  was 
implored  to  moderate  his  zeal.  And  notwithstanding 
that  he  honored  the  Fathers  with  a  personal  visit, 
and  assured  them  of  the  pain  he  felt  in  discharging 
his  disagreeable  duty,  he  nevertheless  discharged  it 
in  such  a  way  as  to  incur  the  hot  resentment  of  the 
inhabitants,  who  have  not  failed  to  placard  his 
memory  with  despicable  accusations  that  remain  to 
this  day.  Among  them,  it  is  not  surprising  to  find 
him  called  an  atheist,  as  a  result  of  association  with 
the  brilliant  freethinkers  of  Paris,  and  from  other 
associations  he  was  said  to  have  formed  a  taste  for 
society  of  gay  morality. 

But  Gayarre  and  other  historians  paint  a  different 
picture  of  him: 

"Large,  well-formed,  with  noble  appearance,  impressive,  brave, 
with  eyes  lightened  as  if  by  fire;  in  short,  so  remarkable  a  person  that 
people  not  knowing  with  whom  to  compare  him,  called  him  Louis 
XIV!  .  .  .  Good  beyond  all  tests,  loving  his  fellow  citizens  like 
brothers,  possessed  of  all  the  qualities  that  make  a  loved  husband, 
father,  friend.  Charming  and  agreeable  in  his  speech,  with  all  the 
grace  and  charm  of  manner  acquired  in  the  most  pohshed  society 
of  Europe.    .    .    . 

"Sweet  tempered  and  moderate  in  all  ordinary  situations  of  life, 
he  was  as  if  electrified  with  passion  on  serious  occasions,  and  none 
could  resist  the  torrent  of  his  eloquence." 

As  a  matter  of  course,  therefore,  he  was  the  object 
of  the  most  flattering  popular  attentions  of  New 
Orleans,  and  the  wonder  and  admiration  of  public 
assemblies. 

The  result  of  the  decree  against  the  Jesuits,  the 
confiscation  of  their  property,  including  the  fine 
plantations  above  the  city  upon  which  they  were 
making  the  experiment  of  planting  sugar  cane,  the 
closing  of  their  chapels  and  the  abrupt  termination 


LAFR£NIERE  175 

of  their  religious  and  educational  benefactions  to  the 
community,  the  parting  with  beloved  pastors  and 
friends,  threw  New  Orleans  into  acute  distress  of 
mind  and  heart,  from  which  it  had  not  recovered 
when  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  signed  in  1763,  was  made 
public  in  1764. 

The  Louisianians  had  followed  with  the  shrewd 
eyes  of  Indian  fighters  the  progress  of  the  war  in 
Northern  America  between  the  English  and  French. 
That  France  as  a  consequence  of  defeat  should  be 
forced  to  give  up  her  American  possessions  to  her 
victorious  rival  had  been  foreseen,  with  the  cool 
stoicism  of  good  fighters;  and  the  humiliating  sight 
of  the  Enghsh  boats  sailing  up  and  down  the  Missis- 
sippi River  carrying  provisions  and  men  to  the  newly 
acquired  Enghsh  possessions  was  one  their  eyes  were 
growing  accustomed  to. 

The  city,  with  its  territory,  the  Island  of  Orleans, 
as  it  w^as  called,  alone  remained  to  France  and,  as  it 
may  be  imagined,  never  had  the  fleur-de-lis  flown 
more  proudly  and  bravely  after  its  humiliating  with- 
drawal from  Canada  than  it  did  over  the  small 
sovereignty  remaining  to  it  in  Louisiana ;  and  never 
was  sovereignty  more  loyally  and  devotedly  acknowl- 
edged by  the  city  of  New  Orleans  than  in  the  hour 
of  French  defeat.  The  city  contained  only  3,190 
inhabitants,  but  the  population  of  New  Orleans  has 
never,  in  political  crises,  been  reckoned  by  mere 
numerical  physical  statistics.  At  this  time  it  was 
less  to  be  so  reckoned  than  ever.  The  city  seemed 
at  last  on  the  point  of  fulfilling  the  arrogant  hopes 
of  its  future  that  had  been  sown  in  the  time  of  Bien- 
ville, and  the  colony,  after  bravely  struggling  for 
half  a  century,  had  at  last  made  a  sure  foothold  in 


176  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

the  soil.  Rewards  for  past  suffering  were  flowing  in. 
Commerce  was  beginning  to  prosper,  and  agriculture 
to  be  profitable.  The  conditions  of  life  were  being 
softened  into  luxury  by  wealth.  Population  was 
increasing.  The  Indians  were  flocking  everyivhere  to 
the  French  settlements;  the  English,  busy  taking 
possession  of  their  new  acquisitions,  were  friendly 
and  content. 

The  political  horizon,  viewed  from  the  city,  was 
never  freer  and  clearer  than  when  the  greatest  cloud 
of  its  history  burst  over  it,  in  the  publication  of  an 
official  letter  from  the  Eang  to  M.  d'Abbadie.  It 
stated  that,  by  private  act  passed  at  Fontainebleau, 
on  November  3d,  1762,  he  had  by  his  own  free 
will  ceded  to  his  very  dear  and  beloved  cousin,  the 
King  of  Spain,  and  to  his  successors  and  heirs  in  full 
property,  completely  and  without  reserve  or  restric- 
tion, all  the  country  known  under  the  name  of 
Louisiana,  as  well  as  New  Orleans;  and  that  by 
another  act,  signed  by  the  King  of  Spain  on  the  thir- 
teenth of  November  of  the  same  year,  His  Catholic 
Majesty  had  accepted  the  cession! 

Historians,  in  default  of  more  appropriate  expres- 
sion, merely  write  that  the  colony  was  plunged  into 
the  deepest  consternation.  Gayarre  being  in  touch, 
as  he  was,  with  the  sentiments  of  his  grandfather, 
describes  the  heartfelt  bitterness,  the  talk  and  the 
feelings  which  spread  through  the  streets,  and  which 
the  streets  of  New  Orleans  were  too  small,  in  truth, 
to  contain: 

"As  Frenchmen,  they  felt  that  a  deep  wound  had  been  inflicted 
on  their  pride  by  the  severing  in  twain  of  Louisiana,  and  the  dis- 
tribution of  its  mutilated  parts  between  England  and  Spain.  As 
men,  they  felt  the  degradation  of  being  bartered  away  as  marketable 


LAFR^NIERE  177 

objects;  they  felt  the  loss  of  their  national  character  and  rights, 
and  the  humiliation  of  their  sudden  transformation  into  Spaniards 
or  Englishmen,  without  their  consent.  As  colonists,  as  property 
owners,  as  members  of  a  civilized  society,  they  were  agitated  by 
all  the  apprehensions  consequent  upon  a  change  of  laws,  manners, 
customs,  habits  and  government." 

There  ensued  a  moment  of  panic  with  loss  of 
nerve.  Lafreniere,  the  popular  favorite,  was  the 
first  to  recover  his  presence  of  mind  and  logically, 
in  his  case,  flew  to  legal  measures  of  defense.  By  a 
poUtical  innovation,  daring  at  that  time,  he  appealed 
to  the  people,  calling  a  pubUc  mass  meeting  of  repre- 
sentatives from  every  parish  in  the  province  to  con- 
sider the  question  of  the  cession.  The  response  was 
enthusiastic.  A  vast  number  crowded  to  the  meet- 
ing. Among  them  were  Viller6;  the  Chevalier 
d'Arensbourg;  Maxent;  de  la  Chaise;  Marquis,  the 
commander  of  the  Swiss  troops;  Doucet,  a  distin- 
guished lawyer  recently  arrived  from  France;  St. 
Lette,  Pin;  Jean  Milhet,  the  richest  merchant  of  the 
city ;  Joseph,  his  brother ;  de  Boisblanc ;  de  Grandmai- 
son;  de  Lalande;  Le  Sassier;  Kernion — all  prominent 
names  of  the  best  and  strongest  men  in  the  city  and 
country. 

Lafreniere  called  the  meeting  to  order,  made  an 
eloquent  speech  explaining  the  situation,  and  sub- 
mitted a  prepared  resolution  of  protest — a  sincere 
document,  written  in  simple  language,  expressing 
passionate  devotion  to  the  mother  country  and  to  the 
King,  ending  with  a  heart-rending  plea  not  to  be 
divorced  from  France,  not  to  be  made  to  change 
the  name  of  Frenchmen  for  that  of  Spaniards.  The 
resolution  was  enthusiastically  adopted,  and  Jean 
Milhet  was  deputed  to  carry  it  to  France  and  lay  it 


178  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

at  the  foot  of  the  throne.  A  year  elapsed  before 
Milhet  returned,  but  no  Spaniard  had  presented 
himself  to  take  possession.  On  strength  of  the  so- 
called  truism  that  ''no  news  is  good  news,"  the 
passions  of  the  excited  population  began  to  calm 
down  and,  'like  little  wanton  boys,'^  they  swam  on 
bladders,  until  Milhet  did  return  to  report  that  he 
had  not  even  been  able  to  gain  access  to  the  King  or 
to  deliver  the  protest;  and  almost  at  the  same  time 
in  June  came  the  announcement  that  Don  Antonio 
de  UUoa  had  been  sent  to  take  possession  of  the 
province ! 

August,  September,  October,  November,  Decem- 
ber passed  away.  Governor  d'Abbadie  died  and 
was  succeeded  by  Aubry,  the  military  commander,  a 
Frenchman  and  only  a  Frenchman — with  no  thought 
save  for  his  military  duties.  The  year  1766  opened, 
and  still  no  Spaniard  appeared. 

"Many  of  the  colonists,"  says  Gayarre,  "now  adopted  the  con- 
viction that  the  Treaty  of  Cession  was  but  a  sham  instrument,  con- 
cealing some  diplomatic  manoeuvring."* 

But  on  the  fifth  of  March  the  unexpected,  the 
impossible,  happened.  Ulloa  arrived,  accompanied 
by  two  companies  of  infantry,  and  the  Spanish 
officials  of  the  government  to  be  set  up :  a  Commis- 
sary of  War,  Loyola;  an  Intendant,  Gayarre;  a 
Treasurer,  Navarro.  Aubry,  the  Governor,  re- 
ceived them  according  to  the  ceremonious  military 
etiquette  of  the  day,  while  the  concourse  of  citizens 
looked  on  in  sullen  discontent.  He  had  previously 
convened  all  the  French  officers  and  laid  before  them 
the  instructions  he  had  received  from  his  government 

*  "French  Domination."     Gayarr6. 


lafrMiere  179 

to  put  the  military  forces  at  the  disposal  of  the 
Spanish  Governor;  and  he  consulted  them  on  the 
practicability  of  coercing  the  troops  into  the  service 
of  Spain.  The  officers  refused  unanimously  to  go 
into  the  service  of  Spain,  and  warned  him  that  the 
attempt  to  coerce  the  French  soldiers  would  be 
exceedingly  dangerous. 

The  next  step  in  the  transaction  should  have  been 
for  Ulloa  to  exhibit  his  powers  to  the  highest  court 
authority  in  the  province,  the  Superior  Council, 
who  alone  could  deliver  the  province  to  him.  He 
refused  to  do  this  on  the  ground  that  he  intended  to 
postpone  taking  possession  of  the  country  until  the 
arrival  of  all  the  Spanish  forces  that  he  expected, 
adding  that  he  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  Superior 
Council,  which  was  only  a  civil  tribunal  by  which  he 
could  not  possibly  be  called  to  account.  With  regard 
to  the  delivery  of  the  province  into  his  hands,  he 
declared  that  he  had  to  deal  only  with  Governor 
Aubry,  whom  he  recognized  as  the  sole  competent 
authority  on  that  matter. 

Autocratic  insolence  could  go  no  further.  The 
issue  was  made  clearly  now,  not  between  the  inhabit- 
ants and  Spain,  but  between  the  civil  and  military 
authorities.  Unquestionably,  if  Ulloa  had  pro- 
ceeded to  the  Council,  then  in  session,  and  had  fol- 
lowed the  proper  formalities,  as  requested,  he  could 
have  been  put  in  possession  of  the  province  peaceably 
and  legally. 

Ulloa' s  military  weakness  and  his  insolent  arro- 
gance fanned  the  sparks  of  hatred  existing  already 
against  him  and  his  government.  New  Orleans 
was  soon  seething  with  revolutionary  talk,  the  fury 
of  which  he  kept  at  a  white  heat  by  his  subsequent 


180  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

conduct.  While  refusing  to  take  formal  possession 
of  the  colony,  he  proceeded  to  exercise  all  functions 
of  the  Governor  of  it.  He  visited  various  posts, 
remaining  some  time  in  Nachitoches  the  sensitive 
spot  on  the  border  between  Spanish  and  French 
possessions,  and  in  each  place,  with  the  tacit  consent 
of  the  subservient  Aubry,  raised  the  Spanish  flag 
and  lowered  the  French.  He  ordered  a  census  of  the 
colony.  The  commercial  restrictions  he  imposed 
were  all  for  the  benefit  of  Spanish  trade  and  ruinous 
to  the  interests  of  New  Orleans. 

In  September,  a  file  of  soldiers  with  fixed  bayonets, 
heralded  by  the  loud  beating  of  a  drum,  proclaimed, 
by  order  of  Aubry,  an  ordinance  dictated  by  Ulloa, 
according  to  instructions  received  from  Spain.  As 
Aubry  wrote  to  his  government: 

"I  command  for  the  King  of  France,  and  at  the  same  time  I 
govern  the  colony  as  if  it  belonged  to  Spain!" 

The  Superior  Council  was  composed  of  no  insignifi- 
cant men,  as  their  names  and  titles  show :  Foucault, 
the  Commissary-General  of  France;  Lafreniere,  the 
Attorney-General;  de  la  Chaise;  Le  Sassier;  Laplace. 
They  were  not  the  men  to  be  flouted  with  impunity, 
or  to  look  on  supinely  while  a  foreign  usurper,  as 
they  considered  Ulloa,  exercised  their  functions  and 
ruined  their  country.  They  met  in  secret  caucus,  as 
it  would  be  called  to-day,  and  discussed  what  could 
be  done,  not  to  hold  the  province  to  France,  but  to 
drive  the  Spaniards  away. 

Lafreniere  was,  as  usual,  the  leader;  Foucault, 
the  King's  Intendant,  was  his  right  hand;  their  fol- 
lowers were:  Masan,  a  retired  Captain  of  Infantry 
who   had   served   under   Bienville — a   middle-aged 


lafrMiere  181 

man  who  had  become  a  wealthy  planter  and  Cheva- 
lier of  St.  Louis;  Marquis,  Captain  of  the  Swiss 
soldiers;  the  two  nephews  of  Bienville — the  one 
called  Bienville,  a  Captain  of  Cavalry;  and  Noyan,  a 
Lieutenant  in  the  Navy;  Doucet,  a  lawyer,  just 
arrived  from  France;  the  Milhets;  Caresse;  Poupart; 
Hardy  de  Boisblanc;  and  Viller6,  brother-in-law  of 
Lafreniere,  and  Commander  of  the  German  Coast. 
The  band  of  patriots  met  secretly,  either  at  Masan's 
house  or  at  Madame  PradeFs  (a  friend  of  Foucault's), 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  city,  a  villa  which  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  large  garden,  shaded  by  magnificent 
magnolias. 

The  conspirators  would  drop  in  one  by  one,  and, 
when  their  number  was  complete,  would  unfold  and 
discuss  their  plans;  after  which  they  would  saunter 
in  the  perfumed  alleys  of  roses,  myrtles  and  magnolias 
and  end  the  evening  with  a  luxurious  banquet. 
The  secret  of  their  meetings  was  so  well  kept  that 
Aubry  and  Ulloa  learned  of  it  only  late  in  October, 
when  all  the  plans  were  matured  and  when  the  pro- 
gramme of  proceedings  was  decided  upon. 

On  the  twenty-seventh,  Foucault  called  a  meeting 
of  the  Superior  Council  for  the  next  day.  The  day 
before  this  sitting  of  the  Council,  a  pubhc  meeting 
was  held;  it  was  addressed  by  Lafreniere  in  a  fiery 
speech,  of  which  Gayarr6  publishes  a  fragment: 

"Sirs,  we  are  arrived  at  a  moment  of  crisis,  when  we  must  face 
with  vigor.  In  desperate  cases  we  must  have  recourse  to  desperate 
measures.  What  greater  misfortune  could  we  suffer  than  that  to 
being  no  longer  Frenchmen.  What  shame  to  be  sold  as  slaves  to  a 
foreign  nation  whose  language  we  do  not  know!  Our  possessions 
they  are  naught :  our  life,  our  honor  will  be  put  under  laws  that  we 
know  nothing  of.  Let  us  follow  the  noble  example  of  the  people  of 
Burgundy,  when  Francis  the  first,  abandoned  by  fortune  on  the 


182  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

plains  of  Pa  via,  consented  to  buy  his  liberty  at  the  price  oi  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  provinces  of  France.  The  nobiUty  of  Burgundy 
replied  with  unanimous  voice  to  Launoy,  who  came  to  take  possession 
in  the  name  of  the  King  of  Spain :  'The  French  soil  is  unahenable, 
therefore  the  King  of  France  cannot  transfer  it  to  a  foreign  power! 
French  by  birth  and  by  our  hearts,  we  will  know  how  to  live  and  die 
as  Frenchmen!  If  the  King  of  France  persists  in  abandoning  use, 
come  and  take  us!"* 

The  Superior  Council  met  as  convened  by  Fou- 
cault.  Only  five  members  were  present,  the  rest 
excusing  themselves  on  the  plea  of  sickness.  Car- 
esse,  being  introduced,  presented  a  petition  signed 
by  six  hundred  planters,  merchants  and  other  citi- 
zens, demanding  the  restoration  of  their  rights  and 
liberties  as  Frenchmen,  and  demanding  the  expul- 
sion of  UUoa.  The  petition  was  said  to  have  been 
written  by  Lafreniere  and  Doucet. 

It  was  not  read  at  the  Council,  but  was  referred  to 
two  members,  Huchet  de  Kernion  and  de  Launay, 
with  instructions  to  present  it  next  day. 

In  order  to  restore  the  Council  to  its  full  strength, 
Lafreniere  moved  to  replace  the  absent  members 
by  appointment,  and  six  were  chosen  on  his  and 
Foucault's  recommendation.  During  the  night  of 
the  27th  the  guns  at  the  Tchoupitoulas  Gate  were 
spiked;  the  next  morning  Villere,  at  the  head  of  the 
German  settlers,  all  armed,  entered  the  city.  The 
AcadianSjt  also  armed,  under  Noyan,  followed  the 
Germans.  The  planters  along  the  coast  joined  their 
confederates. 

*  "Essaie  Historique  sur  la  Louisiane,  1830."  This  fragment, 
Gayarr6  says,  was  found  in  an  old  manuscript,  but  the  manuscript 
has  been  lost. 

t  In  1765,  about  six  hundred  and  fifty  Acadians  had  arrived  in 
New  Orleans  and  had  been  sent  to  settlements  in  the  Attakapas 
and  Opelousas  districts,  where  their  descendants  still  live  and  thrive 


lafrMiere  183 

Marquis  took  command  of  the  insurgents.  Alarm 
and  confusion  spread  through  the  town.  The 
Spanish  frigate  withdrew  to  the  other  side  of  the 
river.  Aubry  distributed  cartridges  to  his  small  band 
of  one  hundred  and  ten  French  soldiers,  after  sending 
for  Lafreniere  and  Foucault  and  in  vain  imploring 
them  to  desist.  UUoa  and  his  household  prudently 
retreated  to  the  Spanish  frigate;  Gayarr^,  Loyola 
and  Navarro  barricaded  themselves  in  the  Govern- 
ment House.  On  the  29th,  the  next  step  was  taken: 
the  Superior  Council  met  to  take  the  petition  of 
Caresse  into  consideration,  but  before  deliberating 
inquired  of  Aubry  whether 'Ulloa  had  exhibited  to 
him  his  powers  to  take  possession  of  the  colony  in 
the  name  of  the  King  of  Spain?  Aubry  answered 
that  nothing  decisive  on  the  subject  had  ever  been 
shown. 

Then  the  Attorney-General  arose  with  the  ques- 
tion: ''Is  yours  a  competent  tribunal?  Are  these 
complaints  in  the  petition  just?"  and  proceeded  to 
open  an  elaborate,  thorough  and  convincing  argu- 
ment; a  scholarly  exposition  of  the  legal  position  of 
the  Superior  Council  and  the  illegal  assumption  of 
authority  on  the  part  of  Ulloa.  After  hstening  to  it, 
and  to  the  report  of  the  committee,  the  decree 
against  the  government  of  Ulloa  was  granted,  and 
Ulloa  was  enjoined  to  leave  the  colony  in  three 
days. 

Gayarre  mentions  with  pride  a  passage  in  La- 
freniere's  address  before  the  Council:* 

"Without  liberty  there  are  but  few  virtues.     Despotism  breeds 

*  This  able  document  is  printed  in  full  in  the  appendix  of  Gayarr^'s 
"French  Domination." 


184  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

pusillanimity,  and  deepens  the  abyss  of  vice.     Man  is  considered  as 
sinning  before  God  only  because  he  retains  his  free  will." 

As  Gayarre  comments,  to  appreciate  this  bold 
language  it  must  be  remembered  that  it  was  officially 
uttered  by  the  Attorney-General  of  an  absolute 
monarch  and  that  it  was  intended  to  reach  the  ears 
of  the  despotic  government  of  France. 

Each  one  of  the  thirteen  members  of  the  Council 
gave  his  opinion  separately  and  in  writing,  that  of 
Hardy  de  Boisblanc  being  distinguished  by  its 
violence  against  Ulloa.  The  decree  prayed  for  was 
granted — the  Council  framing  it  in  almost  the  exact 
words  of  Lafr^niere.  It  was  also  resolved  that  col- 
lated copies  be  sent  to  the  Due  de  Choiseul. 

In  the  meantime  the  excited  populace,  gathered  in 
the  Place  d'Armes,  were  giving  vent  to  the  wildest 
clamor  against  Spain  and  for  France.  When  the 
decree  issued  by  the  Superior  Council  was  communi- 
cated to  them,  the  most  intense  enthusiasm  thrilled 
them;  women  and  children  rushed  to  the  flagstaff 
that  bore  the  banner  of  France,  and  embraced  it 
frantically. 

Two  days  later  Aubry  sent  to  one  of  the  Ministers 
of  France  a  detailed  account  of  all  that  had  taken 
place.  He  writes,  exonerating  himself  from  any 
responsibility  in  an  action  that  he  says,  plaintively, 
he  considers  one  of  the  greatest  outrages  that  could  be 
conunitted: 

"I  protest  against  their  decree  which  orders  the  expulsion  within 
three  days  of  him  whom  His  Catholic  Majesty  had  sent  to  take 
possession  of  the  colony." 

This  despatch  was  entrusted  to  a  Knight  of  St. 
Louis  who  was  instructed  to  give  all  further  informa- 
tion needed  about  the  revolution. 


LAFR^NIERE  185 

The  Superior  Council  lost  no  time  in  sending  also 
their  account  of  what  had  taken  place.  Their 
messengers  were  Le  Sassier,  one  of  their  members, 
and  Bienville,  of  the  Navy,  with  Milhet  to  represent 
the  merchants.  Bienville  was  debarred  from  serving 
by  his  miUtary  duties  and  St.  Lette  was  named  in  his 
place. 

In  the  evening  of  the  same  day,  October  31st,  Ulloa 
embarked  with  his  family  and  attendants  on  a  French 
vessel  that  he  chartered,  alleging  that  the  Spanish 
frigate  needed  repairs. 

The  following  morning,  November  1st,  a  band  of 
merrymakers  from  a  wedding  feast,  who  had  passed 
the  night  frolicking,  could  not  restrain  themselves 
at  the  sight  of  the  French  vessel  moored  at  the  bank. 
With  shouts  of  exultation  they  saw  Petit,  one  of  their 
mmiber,  cut  the  ropes  that  made  the  ship  fast  to  the 
shore;  and  as  it  slowly  moved  away  on  the  current 
of  the  river  they  flung  their  cries  of  derision  until 
it  passed  out  of  sight. 

The  coup  d'etat  had  been  accomplished.  The 
colony  had  repulsed  both  the  French  and  Spanish 
effort  against  its  liberty  and  had  shown  what  was 
the  quality  of  its  manhood.  The  planters  and  mer- 
chants put  forth  as  their  final  justification  a  Memo- 
rial repeating  the  arguments  contained  in  the  address 
of  Lafreniere  before  the  Council,  reinforced  by  their 
proven  allegations.  This  Memorial,  as  it  is  called, 
was  printed  by  Brand  the  Royal  Printer,  on  the 
order  of  Foucault.  The  Memorial  was  evidently 
written  by  Lafreniere. 

"What  harm  have  we  done"  it  asks,  "in  shaking  off  a  foreign 
yoke?  What  offense  have  we  committed  in  claiming  back  our  laws, 
our  country,  our  sovereign?     Are  such  laudable  attempts  without 


186  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

an  example  in  our  history?  Has  not  more  than  one  city  in  France, 
such  as  Cahors  and  Mautauban,  and  even  whole  provinces,  such  as 
the  Guerci,  the  Rouerque  and  Gascony,  repeatedly  broken  with 
patriotic  courage  the  English  yoke,  or  refused  to  be  fettered  by 
foreign  chains?  Noble  resistance  to  the  decrees  of  our  natural  born 
sovereigns,  far  from  kindUng  their  wrath,  stirred  up  the  fountains  of 
their  attachment  and  forced  them  into  helping  their  loving  subjects 
and  thus  wrought  out  their  deliverance!" 

The  Superior  Council  also  addressed  to  the  Prime 
Minister  a  communication  forwarding  its  decree  to 
be  laid  at  the  foot  of  the  throne.  With  this  document 
went  a  letter  from  Foucault  justifying  what  had 
taken  place,  and  Aubry  added  another  letter  in 
which  he  had  the  courage  to  say: 

"I  foresaw  the  unfortunate  event  which  has  occurred.  .  .  . 
M.  de  UUoa  was  not  the  proper  person  to  govern  this  colony,  not- 
withstanding his  vast  interest  .  .  .  and  although  he  is  full  of 
honour  and  probity,  and  zeal  for  his  sovereign,  he  does  not  possess 
the  necessary  qualifications  to  command  Frenchmen.  .  ,  ,  Pie 
has  done  all  that  he  could  to  alienate  them.  He  seemed  to  despise 
the  first  men  of  the  colony  and  particularly  the  members  of  the 
Superior  Council.  ...  He  has  alarmed  everybody  .  .  .  and 
contributed  not  a  Uttle  to  draw  down  upon  himself  and  his  realm 
the  storm  that  has  swept  him  away." 

All  fruitless  .  .  .  France,  destined  a  score  of 
years  later  to  be  the  torchbearer  of  hberty  to  all 
the  world,  was  still  a  slave  in  chains ;  and  the  patriots 
of  Louisiana,  worthy  to  stand  in  the  ranks  of  the 
great  liberators  of  people,  were  coldly  condemned 
by  a  mere  turning  down  of  thumbs! 

Ulloa  arrived  safely  in  Havana,  whence  he  at  once 
sent  his  report  of  his  expulsion  from  Louisiana  to  his 
government,  making  as  good  an  argument  for  hunself 
as  his  antagonists  had  made  against  him.  He  showed 
in  it  that  he  was  fully  aware  of  the  state  of  feeUng  of 


LAFRMieRE  187 

the  colonists  at  the  time  of  his  arrival,  and  thor- 
oughly cognizant  of  the  efforts  they  were  making  to 
frustrate  the  cession.  His  report,  indeed,  is  so  well 
furnished  with  information,  that  historians  have 
supplied  themselves  from  it. 

Ulloa  states  that  when  the  revolt  was  only  in 
contemplation,  de  Bienville,  the  brother  of  Noyan, 
and  Masan,  son  of  the  *' Conspirator, '^  went  secretly 
to  Pensacola  to  solicit  assistance  of  troops  from  the 
English  Governor-General  to  support  the  insurrec- 
tion; upon  his  refusal  to  do  this,  the  proposal  was 
made  to  transform  the  colony  into  a  repubUc  under 
the  protection  of  England.  This  being  discouraged, 
they  then  boldly  determined  to  rise  in  their  own 
strength  and  trample  under  foot  the  orders  of  their 
Sovereign.  Lafreniere  he  names  as  the  one  single 
man  who  put  the  colony  in  a  state  of  insurrection, 
and  that  it  is  not  the  first  time  that  his  ^'seditious 
maxims"  had  caused  trouble. 

In  the  report  of  Ulloa  above  quoted,  he  states  that 
Kerlerec  had,  in  a  letter,  mentioned  Lafreniere  to 
him  as  one  of  the  turbulent  spirits  whose  intrigues 
and  practices  had  agitated  the  colony  during  his 
administration;  and  that  M.  d'Abbadie,  who  had 
succeeded  Kerlerec,  had  made  the  same  complaint. 

The  news  of  the  revolution  in  Louisiana  reaching 
Spain  in  forty  days,  a  Cabinet  Council  was  held  to 
determine  whether  the  colony  should  be  retained  or 
returned  to  France.  On  account  of  its  extreme 
importance  geographically,  it  was  resolved  to  retain 
it ;  and  to  use  force  to  reduce  the  colonists  to  submis- 
sion, the  necessary  measures  to  be  taken  without 
delay.     Don.  Alexander  O'Reilly,  Lieutenant-Gen- 


188  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

eral  of  the  Royal  Annies,  was  given  powers  to  effect 
this. 

While  the  fate  of  Louisiana  was  thus  settled  in 
Spain  the  colony  had  resumed  a  certain  degree  of 
apparent  tranquility. 

Says  Gayarre:  "The  excitement  of  action  having  given  way  to 
calm  consideration,  what  would  France  do?  what  Spain?  became  the 
anxious  questions  of  the  hour.  The  crowd  which  had  filled  the 
Place  d'Armes  with  its  clamor  began  to  shrink.  The  leaders  alone 
maintained  their  proud  attitude,  imder  the  lowering  cloud,  with 
unfaltering  courage." 

The  Spanish  frigate,  still  anchored  in  the  river, 
was  at  last  forced  to  relieve  the  city  of  its  menacing 
presence.  But  the  three  Spanish  dignitaries,  Loyola, 
Gayarre,  and  Navarro,  remained  to  make  friends  for 
themselves,  if  not  for  their  government.  It  was  in 
this  interim  of  somber  disquietude  that  the  proposi- 
tion was  made  to  expel  Aubry  and  his  few  French 
troops;  to  proclaim  New  Orleans  a  free  port;  to  form 
a  republic  where  the  oppressed  and  needy  among  all 
the  nations  of  the  earth  would  find  a  refuge  and 
a  home.  The  chief  of  the  republic  was  to  be  styled 
a  Protector.  A  bank,  on  the  plan  of  that  of  Amster- 
dam or  Venice,  was  to  be  created  to  furnish  the 
financial  support  of  the  commonwealth. 

The  Swiss  captain,  Masan,  originated  this  scheme 
of  a  republic,  violently  and  openly  recommending 
its  adoption,  and  it  became  a  subject  of  public  dis- 
cussion and  was  circulated  in  the  colony  through 
manuscript  and  printed  documents. 

"There  is  no  doubt,"  says  Gayarr6,  speaking  with  his  usual 
authority,  that  the  colonists  would  have  eagerly  adopted  this  form 
of  government,  for  they  had  always  been  republicans  in  spirit." 


LAFR^NIERE  189 

But  although  the  idea  was  abandoned  as  Quixotic, 
it  nevertheless  bequeathed  to  Louisiana  the  right  of 
claiming  to  be  the  first  European  colony  in  America 
that  formed  the  design  of  proclaiming  her  indepen- 
dence. 

In  the  meantime,  rumor  spread  that  Spain  was 
making  formidable  preparations  against  Louisiana 
and  the  leaders  of  the  revolution  were  urged  to  seek 
safety  in  flight  to  the  English  possessions.  This  they 
scornfully  refused  to  do,  determined  to  remain  in 
Louisiana  with  their  fellow  citizens. 

It  was  on  the  morning  of  July  24th,  1769,  when, 
as  we  can  imagine,  the  inhabitants  of  New  Orleans 
had  awakened  to  their  work  or  their  pleasure  and 
were  intent  only  on  them,  that  the  city  was  shaken, 
as  if  by  an  earthquake,  by  the  news  that  a  formidable 
Spanish  fleet  had  made  its  appearance  at  the  Balise — 
in  command  of  General  O'Reilly.  The  judgment 
day  had  come! 

Latent  uneasiness  of  conscience  burst  at  once  into 
violent  fear.  Any  attempt  at  further  resistance  w^as 
as  much  out  of  the  question  as  further  attempt  at 
sinning  on  the  last  day.  Nevertheless,  the  spirited 
Marquis  stuck  a  white  cockade  in  his  hat  and  made 
an  appeal  to  the  people  to  oppose  the  landing  of  the 
Spanish.  Petit,  with  a  pistol  in  each  hand,  spoke 
wdth  passionate  violence  against  the  Spanish,  and 
was  ready,  he  declared,  to  blow  out  the  brains  of  any 
coward  who  would  not  cooperate  against  them! 

In  vain!  The  conviction  of  the  hopelessness  of 
their  condition  made  the  populace  apathetic  to  all 
else.  There  was  no  longer  any  spirit  of  resistance 
in  them!  The  leaders  of  the  revolution  themselves 
became  alarmed  over  the  desperate  outlook.     The 


190  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

magnitude  of  the  armament  against  the  colony- 
threw  them  into  dismay.  They  presented  them- 
selves before  the  despised  Aubry,  as  before  the  pos- 
sessor of  the  confidence  of  the  Spaniards.  He,  with 
a  hypocritical  show  of  real  sympathy,  cheered  them 
with  his  belief  that,  as  no  blood  had  been  spilt,  none 
would  be  demanded  in  expiation;  and  that  the  great 
force  of  General  O'Reilly  could  not  possibly  be 
meant  to  carry  terror  and  desolation  through  the 
land,  but  merely  to  insure  possession  of  it.  He 
advised  prompt  submission,  offering  to  act  in  their 
favor  with  O'Reilly. 

In  the  evening,  Don  Francisco  Bouligny,  a  Spanish 
officer,  made  his  appearance  in  the  city,  bearing  dis- 
patches to  Aubry  from  O'Reilly,  who  requested  him 
to  take  all  measures  necessary  to  faciUtate  the  trans- 
fer of  Louisiana  to  Spain.  Bouligny,  with  Gayarr^, 
Navarro  and  Loyola,  dined  the  next  day  with  Aubry, 
who  with  emphasis  assured  them  of  the  return  of 
the  people  to  sentiments  of  prudence  and  submission ; 
and  on  the  next  morning  Aubry,  assembling  the 
people  in  the  Place  d'Armes,  counseled  them  to  make 
a  prompt  and  entire  submission,  as  the  only  means 
to  prevent  their  ruin  and  that  of  the  colony. 

Lafreniere,  and  it  was  his  most  heroic  moment, 
then  went  to  Aubry  and  informed  him  that  he  was 
resolved  to  trust  to  the  generosity  and  magnanimity 
of  O'Reilly.  With  Marquis  and  Milhet,  he  offered 
to  present  himself  to  the  Spaniard  with  the  proffer 
of  an  assurance  of  the  complete  submission  of  the 
people  to  the  Spanish  Government. 

Aubry  eagerly  accepted  the  proposition  and,  with 
the  Spanish  officers,  the  Louisiana  gentlemen 
departed  at  once  for  the  Balise.    Don  Francisco  Bou- 


lafrMiere  191 

ligny  presented  them  to  O'Reilly,  who  received  them 
in  state  on  the  deck  of  his  flagship.  Lafr^niere 
was  the  spokesman: 

"Excellency,  M.  Marquis,  an  cx-captain  of  a  Swiss  company; 
M.  Milhet,  a  lieutenant  of  militia  and  a  merchant;  and  I,  Lafr6ni^re, 
a  planter  and  the  King's  Attorney-General,  delegates  of  the  people 
of  Louisiana,  come  to  assure  you  of  their  submission  to  the  orders  of 
their  Most  Cathohc  and  Christian  Majesties.  .  .  .  The  harshness 
of  M.  Ulloa's  temper  and  the  subversion  of  the  privileges  guaranteed 
by  the  Act  of  Cession  were  the  only  causes  of  the  revolution  which 
took  place  in  the  colony.  We  beg  your  Excellency  not  to  consider 
Louisiana  as  a  conquered  country.  The  orders  of  which  you  are  the 
bearer  are  sufficient  to  put  you  in  possession  of  this  province.  The 
French  are  docile  and  accustomed  to  a  mild  government.  The 
colony  claims  from  your  benevolence  the  grant  of  privileges  and 
from  your  equity  the  allowance  of  sufficient  delay  for  those  who 
choose  to  emigrate.    .    .    ." 

O'Reilly  listened  with  grave  dignity  and  made  the 
answer  hoped  for.  In  the  course  of  it,  the  words 
' 'seditious  people"  escaped  his  lips.  Marquis,  inter- 
rupting him,  objected  to  the  word  "seditious'^  and 
explained  the  conduct  of  the  colonists.  O'Reilly 
listened  with  gentle  condescension,  detained  the  gen- 
tlemen to  dine  with  him  with  the  most  delicate 
poHteness,  and  sent  them  back  completely  reassured. 

On  the  morning  of  the  17th  the  Spanish  fleet, 
twenty-four  ships  in  full  rigging,  colors  flying,  ap- 
peared in  front  of  the  city.  O'Reilly  landed  and 
went  to  the  house  prepared  for  him.  During  the 
afternoon  the  Spanish  troops  were  landed  and  were 
received  by  Aubry  at  the  head  of  his  French  soldiers 
and  the  Militia.  The  Spanish  troops,  numbering 
two  thousand  six  hundred  men,  were,  it  is  said, 
among  the  choicest  of  Spain,  and  had  been  selected 
by  O'Reilly  himself.     As  they  marched  from  the 


192  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

ships  with  their  artillery  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
guns,  and  battalion  after  battalion  of  infantry  with 
colors  flying,  perfect  in  discipline  and  in  brilliant 
equipment,  they  excited  the  awe  and  admiration  of 
the  New  Orleans  people. 

All  the  bells  rang  merrily  and  a  salute  was  fired 
from  the  guns  of  the  twenty-four  vessels.  O'Reilly, 
splendidly  accoutered,  preceded  by  guards  with 
silver  maces,  followed  by  his  staff,  advanced  toward 
Aubry,  who  was  standing  with  the  men  of  the 
Superior  Council,  and  presented  them  his  credentials, 
which  were  read  aloud.  Aubry  released  the  Louisian- 
ians  from  their  allegiance  to  France.  The  keys  of 
the  city  were  handed  to  the  Spanish  Governor;  the 
banner  of  France  was  hauled  down.  Then  all  the 
dignitaries  proceeded  to  the  Cathedral,  where  they 
were  received  by  the  clergy.  A  Te  Deum  was  sung, 
and  with  a  pompous  parade  through  the  awed 
streets,  the  cession  was  completed  in  the  eyes  of  the 
humiliated  patriots,  but  not  in  those  of  O'Reilly. 

On  the  day  following  the  stately  ceremony,  he 
gave  a  great  dinner  to  the  French  and  Spanish  offi- 
cials and  citizens  of  distinction ;  but  this,  as  Gayarr^ 
remarks,  did  not  interfere  with. the  business  which 
he  had  on  hand.  He  had  secretly  been  gathering 
documents  and  papers  and  depositions  of  witnesses 
and,  on  the  very  day  of  his  banquet,  had  summoned 
Aubry  to  furnish  him,  as  soon  as  possible,  with  the 
names  of  the  persons  who  had  roused  the  people 
to  enforce  the  expulsion  of  Ulloa — in  other  words, 
the  chiefs  and  agents  of  the  conspiracy,  as  he  styled 
it,  demanding  in  particular  the  decree  of  the  Council 
and  Memorial  of  the  inhabitants. 


LAFRSNIERE  193 

The  pusillanimous  Aubry  responded  fully  and 
promptly. 

"No  Attorney-General/'  to  quote  Gayarr6  again,  "could  have 
drawn  a  more  precise  and  more  fatal  indictment,  concluding  with  a 
humble  and  servile  apology  of  his  own  conduct." 

Aubry^s  document  fixed  O'Reilly's  determination, 
and  he  proceeded  through  his  crafty  programme. 
Without  loss  of  time,  while  Aubry  was  with  him, 
he  drew  to  his  house  under  different  pretexts  nine 
of  the  Louisiana  patriots.  Lafreniere  was,  of  course, 
among  the  first. 

When  they  were  all  in  his  presence,  and  Aubry 
standing  by,  he  tersely  addressed  them: 

"Gentlemen,  the  Spanish  nation  is  respected  and  venerated  all 
over  the  globe.  Louisiana  seems  to  be  the  only  country  which  is  not 
aware  of  it,  and  which  is  deficient  in  the  respect  due  to  that  nation. 
His  Catholic  Majesty  is  much  displeased  at  the  violence  lately 
exercised  in  this  province,  and  at  the  offense  committed  against  his 
governor,  his  officers  and  his  troops.  He  orders  me  to  have  arrested 
and  tried  according  to  the  laws  of  the  Kingdom  the  authors  of  these 
excesses  and  of  all  deeds  of  violence." 

After  reading  the  orders  he  added:  "Gentlemen,  I  regret  to  say 
you  are  accused  of  being  the  authors  of  the  late  insurrection.  I 
therefore  arrest  you  in  the  King's  name!  Here  are  your  judges." 
(Pointing  to  some  officers  in  the  room.)  "They  are  as  equitable 
as  they  are  learned,  and  they  will  listen  to  your  defense.  ...  In 
the  meantime,  all  your  property  according  to  the  customs  of  Spain 
shall  be  sequestered.  .  .  .  As  to  your  wives  and  children.  .  .  . 
I  shall  grant  to  them  all  the  assistance  of  which  they  may  stand  in 
need.  A  faithful  inventory  shall  be  made  of  your  estates  and  effects, 
and  I  invite  each  one  of  you  now  to  appoint  whom  he  pleases  to  be 
present  at  that  inventory,  who  shall  also  countersign  it." 

The  astounded  prisoners  gave  the  names  of  those 
who  were  to  represent  them.  ^'Now,  gentlemen," 
concluded     O'Reilly,     ''please     deliver     up     your 


194  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

swords/'  The  house  during  this  scene  had  been 
surrounded  by  troops  and  the  room  filled  with  grena- 
diers. One  of  the  Spanish  officers  received  the 
swords  and,  with  an  officer  holding  each  arm,  the 
Louisianians  were  conducted  from  the  room  to  their 
places  of  confinement  where  they  were  all  separated 
and  not  permitted  to  communicate  with  one  an- 
other. *  Some  were  put  in  O'Reilly's  Spanish  frigate, 
some  in  other  vessels,  and  the  rest  in  a  well-guarded 
house.  They  were  interrogated,  and  their  deposi- 
tions taken  down  in  writing. 

The  news  of  the  arrest  of  the  patriots  and  of  the 
death  of  Viller^  caused  terror  far  and  wide.  They 
were  so  much  identified  with  the  whole  population — 
as  Gayarr^  says,  ^' their  personal  friends  were  so 
numerous,  their  family  connections  so  extensive, 
that  the  misfortune  which  had  befallen  them  could 
not  but  produce  a  general  sense  of  desolation.'' 
Well  were  verified  the  dire  prophecies  about  Spanish 
cruel  and  despotic  rule.  Many  in  secret  began  to 
make  preparations  to  fly  to  the  English.  Most  of 
the  houses  in  the  city  were  closed;  the  streets  were 
deserted  and  silent,  save  for  the  heavy  tramp  of  the 
grim  Spanish  patrol. 

O'Reilly  pursued  his  progranmie  inexorably.  The 
ceremony  of  taking  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  Spain 
was  sternly  carried  through  and  submitted  to  by  the 
panic-stricken  citizens.  The  trial  was  opened.  The 
judges  descended  into  the  cells  of  the  accused  and 
forced  them  to  answer  minutely  the  questions  they 
propounded.  The  prisoners  never  saw  the  witnesses 
brought   against  them  and  never  knew  who  they 

*  The  account  of  Villere's  death  is  given  elsewhere. 


LAFRtlNIERE  195 

were.  But  the  facts  of  the  accusation  were  of  so 
public  a  nature  that  they  could  not  be  denied.  The 
accused  admitted  most  of  them  and  confessed  their 
respective  parts  in  the  insurrection,  resting  their 
defense  on  the  ground  that  the  King  of  Spain  had 
never  taken  possession  of  Louisiana,  as  Ulloa  had 
never  exhibited  his  commission;  and,  therefore,  the 
colonists  were  not  bound  to  receive  Ulloa  as  the 
representative  of  His  CathoUc  Majesty,  but  had 
the  right  to  treat  him  as  an  intruder  and  im- 
postor and  expel  him  from  the  province.  Also,  as 
the  colonists  had  never  taken  the  oath  of  allegiance 
to  the  King  of  Spain,  or  been  released  by  Aubry 
from  their  oath  to  France,  it  followed  that  the 
inhabitants,  not  having  become  Spanish,  had  re- 
mained French. 

The  French  laws  had  never  been  repealed  and  they 
claimed  the  right  to  be  tried  and  judged  according 
to  the  principles,  forms  and  usages  of  French  juris- 
prudence; and  by  tribunals  and  authorities  compe- 
tent to  take  cognizance  of  their  offense  at  the  time 
it  was  committed. 

Foucault  declined  to  answer  when  interrogated, 
on  the  ground  that  whatever  he  had  done  was  in  his 
official  capacity  as  Intendant  of  the  King  of  France, 
and  that  he  was  answerable  to  his  government  alone, 
taking  exception  to  any  jurisdiction  of  the  Spanish 
tribunal  for  acts  which  he  had  done  officially.  He 
was  willing  to  stand  his  trial  in  France  and  re- 
peatedly asked  to  be  sent  thither.  This  was  ac- 
corded: he  was  shipped  to  France,  where  on  his 
arrival  he  was  thrown  into  the  Bastille.  In  Loui- 
siana Foucault's  reputation  has  suffered  the  penalty 


196  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

of  the  infamy  to  which  the  Spanish  judge  con- 
demned that  of  Villere.  Madame  Pradel  shortly 
followed  Foucault  to  France. 

The  prosecuting  attorney  at  the  trial  of  the 
colonists  was  the  Licentiate,  Don  Felix  del  Rey,  a 
practitioner  before  the  royal  courts  of  St.  Domingo 
and  Mexico.  In  the  long  documentary  report  he  made 
of  the  trial,  he  blames  Lafreniere  as  chief  instigator 
of  the  conspiracy,  and  complains  of  his  deportment. 
As  he  truthfully  says,  if  the  Attorney-General  had 
followed  the  example  of  Aubry,  the  rebels  would 
have  been  constrained  to  do  the  like. 

By  the  24th  of  October  the  Court  came  to  the 
end  of  its  elaborate  formalities  and  found  the 
prisoners  guilty.  O'Reilly,  as  its  President,  pro- 
nounced and  signed 

"the  judgment,  condemning  Nicolas  Chauvin,  de  Lafreniere,  Jean 
Baptiste  Noyan,  Pierre  Caresse,  Pierre  Marquis,  and  Joseph 
Milhet  to  the  gallows,  which  they  have  deserved  by  the  infamy  of 
their  conduct;  to  be  led  to  the  place  of  execution  mounted  on  asses — 
with  a  rope  around  their  necks,  to  be  hanged  and  to  remain  suspended 
until  further  orders." 

Doucet,  Hardy  de  Boisblanc,  Masan,  Jean  Milhet 
and  Pierre  Poupart  were  sentenced  to  six  years  of 
imprisonment  and  perpetual  exile  from  Spanish 
dominions.  All  printed  copies  of  documents  relat- 
ing to  the  insurrection  were  to  be  burnt  by  the  com- 
mon hangman.  Passionate  appeals  for  mercy  were 
made  to  O'Reilly  by  the  women  of  the  colony. 
Loyola,  Gayarr^  and  Navarro  joined  their  interces- 
sions, to  no  effect.  The  sentence  was  carried  out  the 
next  day.  At  three  o'clock  of  the  afternoon  the 
five  prisoners,  their  arms  well  pinioned,  were  con- 
ducted to  the  barracks  yard. 


LAFR&NIERE  197 

"They  were  well  dressed,"  writes  the  gossipy  Baudry  dc  Lozidres, 
and  perfectly  calm  and  self-possessed;  conversed  with  one  another 
as  they  went  along,  looking  around  them  kindly  and  returning 
salutes  addressed  to  them  affectionately." 

Ciipidon,  a  slave,  overcome  with  emotion,  rushed 
forward  and  threw  himself  into  the  arms  of  his  mas- 
ter, Caresse,  shedding  tears  and  embracing  him. 
His  master  returned  his  embraces,  told  him  to  be 
calm,  and  freed  him  publicly,  exhorting  him  not  to 
misuse  his  liberty. 

The  space  for  their  execution  was  guarded  by  a 
large  force  of  Spanish  soldiers,  forming  a  square. 
The  prisoners  were  conducted  to  the  center.  A  bench 
had  been  placed  for  them,  but  they  refused  to  sit 
down.  Their  sentence  was  read  to  them  in  Spanish 
and  French.  They  refused  to  have  their  eyes  ban- 
daged. ''I  have  braved  death  too  often,"  said 
Marquis,  pushing  the  hand  of  the  Spanish  officer 
away,  "to  fear  it  now."  Lafreniere  enjoined  upon 
his  son-in-law,  Noyan,  to  send  the  scarf  he  wore  to 
his  wife,  that  she  might  present  it  to  her  son  when 
he  became  a  man.  With  his  finest  Louis  XIV  man- 
ner, he  faced  his  executioners,  gave,  himself,  the 
word  to  fire,  and  fell,  shouting  with  his  last  breath, 
"Je  suis  Frangais!"  De  Noyan,  Milhet,  Marquis 
and  Caresse  died  in  their  uniforms.  , 

The  wives  and  famiUes  of  the  patriots,  with  the 
good  Ursuhne  Sisters,  were  on  their  knees  before  the 
altar  in  the  chapel  of  the  convent,  which  adjoined 
the  barracks  yard.  When  the  shots  rang  out  on  the 
other  side  of  the  chapel  wall  their  screams  pierced 
the  air  and  they  fell  prostrate  on  the  floor. 

The  day  after  the  execution  the  six  sentenced  to 
imprisonment   were   sent   to   one   of   the   forts   at 


198  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Havana.  The  property  of  all  was  sequestered. 
According  to  O'Reilly's  report,  he  was  satisfied  that 
the  insult  to  the  Ejng  of  Spain  had  been  wiped  out. 

The  Cathedral  archives,  kept  with  minute  preci- 
sion, contain  no  record  of  the  burial  accorded  the 
patriots.  It  is  not  known  where  they  were  buried, 
or  even  if  they  were  accorded  Christian  rites. 
Tradition  supplies  what  seems  only  a  pious  hope, 
that  Father  Dagobert,  the  good  French  priest  of 
the  Cathedral  and  Vicar-General  of  the  province, 
who  was  in  hearty  sympathy  with  the  patriots, 
secretly  had  their  bodies  conveyed  to  the  Cathedral 
precincts  and,  during  the  night,  had  them  buried 
in  holy  ground,  but  the  spot  was  never  marked. 

O'Reilly,  it  is  said,  wished  to  engage  Cupidon  for 
his  servant.  ''What,  serve  the  butcher  of  my  mas- 
ter! Heaven  forbid!"  was  the  negro's  reply.  La- 
freniere's  slave,  Artus,  who  had  a  fine  reputation  as  a 
cook,  was  sent  for  by  O'Reilly,  who  told  him:  ''You 
are  the  slave  now  of  the  King  of  Spain;  I  will  take 
you  for  my  cook."  "Beware!"  said  Artus.  "You 
are  the  assassin  of  my  master!  I  would  poison  you!" 

A  wandering  rumor  from  the  past  is  still  to  be  met 
in  New  Orleans  historical  circles,  that  a  very  old 
Creole  lady,  who  lived  in  Dauphine  Street,  about 
1830,  in  the  greatest  seclusion,  and  who  was  known 
as  "Madame  Boisclair,"  was  in  reahty  the  widow  of 
Lafreniere.  To  protect  her  privacy  she  had  dropped 
the  celebrated  name  and  taken  refuge  in  that  of  one 
of  the  four  Chauvin  brothers  who  had  followed  Bien- 
ville to  Louisiana. 

This  explains  Bernard  Marigny's  statement  in  his 
historical  Memoirs.  He  relates  what  he  seems  per- 
sonally to  have  heard: 


il 


lafrMiere  199 

"To  move  the  heart  of  this  'Cannibal'  (O'Reilly),  Madame 
Lafrenidre  after  stating  to  him  that  she  was  the  granddaughter  of 
the  Chevalier  d'Arcnsbourg,  one  of  the  heroes  of  Sweden  and 
former  aide-de-camp  to  Charles  XII,  .  .  .  represented  to  him 
the  horror  and  humiliation  that  would  be  inflicted  upon  her  noble 
race,  upon  the  old  companion  in  arms  of  Charles  XII.  'My  grand- 
sire,'  exclaimed  the  noble  woman,  'will  die  of  shame  and  grief! 
Do  not  disgrace  us  by  an  infamous  punishment!'  'You  may  retire, 
madam,'  answered  O'Reilly,  'I  will  take  your  prayer  into  con- 
sideration.*   Accordingly,  the  mode  of  execution  was  changed." 

Aubry  left  Louisiana  for  France.  His  steamer  was 
wrecked  in  a  storm  as  it  was  entering  the  Garonna 
and  he  perished  with  it.  ''His  end/'  says  Gayarre, 
''was  looked  upon  as  an  act  of  retributive  justice  by 
Heaven!" 

Lafreniere's  plantation  on  the  Mississippi,  above 
the  Bor^  place,  lay  just  above  the  Audubon  Park 
of  to-day.  It  passed  into  the  hands  of  Le  Breton, 
the  husband  of  one  of  his  daughters.  A  son  of  this 
Le  Breton  married  a  daughter  of  Bore  and  thus  be- 
came related  to  Charles  Gayarre,  whose  mother 
was  the  wife  of  Carlos  Gayarre,  the  son  of  Ulloa's 
Contador. 

France  thrust  a  last  stab  of  disappointment  into 
the  heart  of  Louisianians  who,  with  despairing  love, 
still  clung  to  the  hope  that  the  mother  country  would 
make  at  least  a  gesture  of  pity  towards  them,  but 
a  mere  ripple  of  excitement,  and  nothing  more,  passed 
over  the  French  Government  councils  when  the 
news  came  to  them.  The  Spanish  Government  sus- 
tained O'Reilly  who,  in  true  Spanish  conquistador 
style,  had  laid  the  body  of  a  defenseless  country 
weltering  in  its  blood  at  the  feet  of  His  Most  CathoUc 
Majesty.  In  Louisiana,  Time,  the  great  obliterator 
of  mortal  misdeeds,  has  never  been  able  to  efface  the 


I 


200  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

memory  of  the  tragedy.  The  soil  that  drank  in  the 
blood  of  the  patriots  has  given  it  back  in  the  flowers 
of  inmiortality  that  bloom  around  their  names. 

The  great  Chauvin  family  overlived  the  Spanish 
rule,  carrying  their  fine  heredity  of  sturdy  patriotism 
into  the  vitality  of  the  American  Domination.  In 
New  Orleans,  the  name  still  lives  and  is  met  in  the 
families  of  Villere,  La  bedoyere  Huchet  de  Kernion, 
de  Boisblanc.  Le  Breton,  and  many  others. 


CHAPTER  XI 

LABEDOYERE  HUCHET  DE  KERNION 

•T^HE  old  New  Orleans  name  of  Huchet  de  Kernion 
-*-  is  constantly  met  to-day  in  the  current  ways  of 
social  and  business  life.  It  always  arrests  the 
attention  to  the  bearer  of  it  and  elicits  conaments  of 
respect.  To  trace  its  source  one  must  go  far  back 
into  history. 

To  quote  the  genealogical  records  of  the  family, 
compiled  by  a  representative  of  it  to-day: 

"The  Huchet  de  Kernion  family  of  New  Orleans  is  one  of  the 
youngest  branches  of  a  memorable  tree,  whose  origin  is  lost  in  the 
darkness  of  ages.  The  name  is  Breton  Bretonnant,  whether  it 
descends  from  Huchelin  de  Clamban,  the  gallant  knight  who  took 
part  in  the  Combats  des  Trente  in  1530,  in  the  celebrated  champion- 
ship fight  between  Ploermel  and  Joselin  in  Brittany,  or  whether,  fol- 
lowing the  records  in  the  BibHotheque  Nationale,  the  founder  of  the 
family  was  Hugues  de  Home,  of  the  famous  Home  family  of  Holland, 
who  settled  in  Brittany  in  1295,  changing  his  name  from  Home  to 
Huchet,  is  yet  to  be  determined."* 

"The  fiFst  authenticated  founder  of  the  family," 
to  quote  again  from  the  records,  ^'is  Bertrand 
Huchet  who  lived  in  1415,  Keeper  of  the  Seals  of 
John,  Duke  of  Brittany,  and  also  his  ambassador  to 
England."  His  coat  of  arms  bore  three  hunting 
horns  or  Huchets  sables,  on  an  argent  field.  In  1420 
he  married  Jeanne  de  la  Bedoyere,  heiress  of  the 

*  Kindly  loaned  to  the  author  by  Georges  Charles  la  Bedoyere 
Huchet  de  Kernion,  a  well-known  authority  on  Louisiana  genealogy. 

201 


202  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

noble  name  and  lands  of  the  La  Bedoyeres,  and  he 
annexed  her  arms,  ^'six  pierced  billets  on  an  azure 
field"  to  his  '^  three  Huchets  sables  J'  Her  name  has 
been  transmitted  to  his  line,  which  is  known  to-day 
as  the  La  Bedoyere  Huchet  de  Kernion  branch. 

In  the  nineteenth  century,  the  glory  of  the  name 
shone  out  in  the  person  of  General  Charles  Angelique 
de  la  Bedoyere  who,  like  the  great  Marshal  Ney, 
was  executed  under  the  restoration  for  his  desertion 
to  Napoleon.  He  was  on  the  point  of  making  his 
escape  to  the  United  States,  but  not  being  able  to 
resist  the  temptation  of  bidding  his  wife  farewell, 
he  turned  back  and  was  seized  at  the  door  of  her 
dwelling 

Jean  Frangois  Huchet  de  Kernion  was  born  in 
Rennes  in  1604.  Being  the  youngest  son  of  the 
family,  and  having  no  share  in  the  paternal  estates, 
he  was  destined  for  the  priesthood.  Instead  of  this, 
he  married  Marie  Leonore  de  Boisdonet,  of  an  old 
Breton  family,  and  settled  in  Quimper  about  1650. 

There  his  five  children  were  born  and  in  course  of 
time  were  married  into  good  old  Breton  famiUes. 
The  eldest  son,  who  married  Catherine  Bouillot  de 
Kergadon  (forming  the  branch  of  Kerourin),  was 
the  grandfather  of  Ren6  Theophile  Laennec  de 
Kerlouarnec,  the  celebrated  French  physician,  in- 
ventor of  the  stethoscope,  to  whom  a  statue  has  been 
erected  in  his  native  city  of  Quimper.  The  youngest 
son,  Pierre  Huchet  Sieur  du  Rest,  married  twice, 
and  it  is  from  his  second  wife,  Thomase  R^ne 
Guesdan  de  Keravel,  that  the  Louisiana  branch  of 
the  Kernions  descends.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that,  through  his  first  wife,  Ren^e  Salaun  du  Rest, 
he  became  the  uncle  of  the  celebrated  hero  of  France 


LABEDOYERE    HUCHET    DE    KERNION  203 

• — la  Tour  d^Auvergne,  surnamed  by  Napoleon  ''the 
first  Grenadier  of  France.''  One  of  the  proudest 
traditions  of  the  family  to-day,  however,  is  the  proof 
they  made  under  the  Revolution,  of  their  loyalty 
to  their  Church  and  their  King — giving  up  their 
lives  unflinchingly  to  the  guillotine. 

Jean  Frangois  Huchet,  Sieur  de  Kernion,  the  first 
of  the  name  known  in  Louisiana,  was  born  in  Quimper 
in  1700;  he  was  the  only  son  of  Pierre  Guillaume 
Huchet  and  his  second  wife,  Thomase  Renee 
Guesdan  de  Keravel.  After  a  youth  spent  in 
Quimper,  he  embarked  in  1720  for  Louisiana  as  an 
officer  on  the  vessel,  'Ta  Loire, '^  which  was  bringing 
settlers  to  the  concession  of  '^Ste.  Reine,"  one  of 
the  largest  grants  of  Louisiana  land  made  by  the 
Company,  situated  on  the  Mississippi  above  Baton 
Rouge. 

Louisiana  was  then  m  its  period  of  greatest  infla- 
tion under  John  Law,  and  the  ' 'Mississippi  Bubble'' 
was  glittering  in  the  horizon  of  French  speculators. 
After  an  unsuccessful  trial  of  Perier  as  Governor, 
Bienville  had  been  put  in  charge  of  the  colony  once 
more,  and  was  engaged  in  the  effort  to  end  the 
Natchez  War  on  terms  the  least  disastrous  to  France. 
Huchet  de  Kernion  does  not  figure  in  the  list  of  his 
officers,  either  civil  or  military.  The  first  mention 
of  his  name  occurs  in  1729;  he  is  mentioned  in  the 
census  as  living  with  M.  Petit  de  Levillier,  officer  of 
the  company,  on  the  plantation  of  ' 'Petit  Coulange  '' 
on  the  left  bank  of  the  river,  going  up. 

According  to  the  family  tradition  he  brought  with 
him  from  France  the  voluminous  pages  of  the 
Kernion  record  existing  to-day,  comprising  patents 
of  nobility,  titles,  baptismal  and  marriage  records  and 


204  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

settlements  reaching  back  fourteen  generations  to 
1240,  even  to  the  divine  nimbus  surrounding  the 
name  of  St.  Louis.  His  marriage  in  1736  in  New 
Orleans,  with  Jeanne  Antoinette  Mirbaize  de  Ville- 
mont, Widow  Rivard,  is  the  first  important  item  con- 
cerning him  in  the  Louisiana  records  of  the  family. 

Jeanne  Antoinette  Mirbaize  de  Villemont  was 
the  daughter  of  Henri  Martin  Mirbaize  (or  Mirbois), 
Sieur  de  Villemont,  a  native  of  Poictiers,  and  of 
Antoinette  Fourier.  The  Sieur  de  Villemont,  a 
lieutenant  in  the  French  Army,  came  to  Louisiana 
on  the  ship  ^'Deux  Freres,'^  in  1719,  accompanied 
by  his  wife,  Antoinette  Fourier,  and  his  two 
daughters,  Jeanne  Antoinette  and  Marie  Anne,  and 
bringing  twelve  laborers  for  his  concession,  which  was 
located  on  the  Ouchita  River,  one  hundred  and 
twenty  leagues  from  the  capital. 

Gayarr^  recounts  a  stirring  episode  in  1722  of 
which  Lieutenant  Villemont  was  the  hero.  Stationed 
at  Fort  Toulouse,  in  the  Alabama  district,  in  com- 
mand of  twenty-six  soldiers,  his  men  were  rendered 
desperate  by  their  hunger  in  a  period  of  famine  and 
revolted,  killed  their  captain  and  started  to  escape 
to  the  EngUsh,  in  the  Carolinas.  Villemont,  having 
escaped  from  them  to  the  Indians,  succeeded  in 
raising  a  party  to  join  him  in  pursuing  the  deserters, 
who  were  recaptured  after  a  bloody  combat. 

Marie  Anne  de  Villemont  married  Sieur  Frangois 
de  Caue.  Jeanne  Antoinette  married,  in  1730, 
Antoine  Rivard,  son  of  Antoine  Rivard,  one  of  the 
original  settlers  in  Louisiana,  whose  plantation  is 
shown  on  the  earliest  maps  of  New  Orleans  on  the 
Bayou  or  ''Ruisseau"  St.  Jean.  The  Rivard  act  of 
marriage  is  one  of  the  earliest  records  in  the  Cathedral 


LABEDOYERE  HUCHET  DE  KERNION  205 

register.  Two  daughters  were  born:  Jeanne 
Antoinette  and  Marie  Frangoise.  The  latter  died 
unmarried;  the  former  married  Sieur  Christophe  de 
Glapion,  officer  in  the  French  Army,  son  of  Charles 
de  Glapion,  Seigneur  de  Mesnilaganchie  in  Nor- 
mandy, an  illustrious  family  with  titles  of  nobility 
dating  back  to  1508.  The  marriage  was  celebrated 
in  1757,  on  the  old  Rivard  plantation  on  Bayou  St. 
Jean,  which  was  then  known  as  the  plantation  of 
Huchet  de  Kernion. 

The  wealth  of  the  Rivards  was  in  its  day  a  proverb 
in  Colonial  New  Orleans,  and  it  is  still  repeated 
currently  among  the  descendants  of  the  old  famihes. 
The  marriage  of  the  Widow  Rivard  with  Huchet  de 
Kernion  must  have  been  considered  an  event  of 
great  social  importance  in  the  entire  city.  The 
names  of  the  witnesses  inspire  respect  two  centuries 
afterwards.  Bienville,  Chevalier  de  St.  Louis, 
Governor  of  Louisiana;  de  Noyan,  his  nephew, 
Chevaher  de  St.  Louis  and  his  wife;  Fleuriau, 
Attorney-General;  Salmon,  Commissary  and  In- 
tendant;  Renaud  d'Hauterive;  Madame  Veuve 
Delery;  Frangoise  de  Villemont,  sister  of  the  bride. 

Only  one  child  was  born  of  this  union,  Jean  Ren6 
Huchet  de  Kernion. 

Bienville  having  retired  to  France,  and  the 
Company  of  the  West  having  retroceded  Louisiana 
to  the  French  Government,  Vaudreuil  w^as  appointed 
Governor,  giving  to  Louisiana  an  administration  con- 
sidered still  the  most  brilliant  in  her  annals.  His 
wife,  the  handsome  and  elegant  Marquise  de 
Vaudreuil,  is  entitled  to  share  his  honors  in  history. 
She  may  be  said  to  have  created  society  in  New 
Orleans,  gathering  about  her  the  beautiful  women 


206  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

of  the  city  (among  them  we  may  imagine  the  beau- 
tiful and  rich  Madame  Rivard)  in  her  Httle  ''govern- 
ment court,"  training  and  poUshing  them  and  con- 
verting them  to  the  adoption  of  an  etiquette  so 
perfect  in  its  ruUngs  that  it  reigned  triumphantly 
during  the  Spanish  and  American  administrations, 
and  remained  in  force  two  centuries  later,  as  New 
Orleans  grandmothers  of  to-day  love  to  recall. 

The  Marquise,  who  adored  festivities,  held  recep- 
tions where  she  entertained  with  music  and 
theatricals.  The  first  drama  ever  composed  in 
Louisiana,  an  Indian  story,  was  written  for  her  by 
a  brilliant  young  French  officer  of  her  court,  LeBlanc 
de  Villeneuve;  and  it  was  acted  before  her  in  her 
drawing-room.  The  portrait  of  the  author  is  still 
preserved  as  an  Indian,  the  hero  of  the  play.  During 
her  reign  the  ladies  of  New  Orleans  advanced  very 
far  from  colonial  simplicity  of  manners  and  dress, 
and  indeed  went  so  far  in  sophistication  as  to  order 
their  carriages  from  France. 

In  1735,  Vaudreuil  was  appointed  Governor  of 
Canada,  and  Louis  Billouart  de  Kerlerec  was  named 
to  succeed  him  in  Louisiana.  A  Breton,  born  in 
Quimper,  and  therefore  a  fellow  countryman  and 
townsman  of  Kernion,  Kerlerec  found  in  him  a 
friend  during  the  hard  trials  of  the  most  uneasy 
administration  known  in  colonial  Louisiana.  To 
the  constant  menace  of  Indian  troubles  and  British 
aggression  was  added  the  keen  opposition  of  a  private 
enemy — his  Commissary,  Rochemore,  who,  with 
vindictive  persistence,  not  only  thwarted  his  superior 
at  every  turn,  but  formed  with  the  citizens  a  cabal 
against  him,  and  kept  up  a  constant  current  of 
charges  against  him  to  the  Minister  in  France. 


LABEDOYERE  HUCHET  DE  KERNION  207 

The  doughty  Breton,  who  had  begun  Ufe  at 
fourteen  on  the  sea,  fought  as  sturdily  and  obsti- 
nately against  his  domestic  enemies  as  against 
Indian  and  English  intrigues.  He  fought  even 
against  the  poisonous  venom  of  the  libels  of  Madame 
de  Rochemore,  whom  he  calls  ''the  worst  woman  the 
earth  has  ever  borne,  the  most  perfect  emblem  of 
avarice''!  He,  nevertheless,  was  recalled  in  1763, 
and  was  imprisoned  in  the  Bastille  until  he  could 
disprove  the  charges  against  him.  Huchet  de 
Kernion  was  active  in  Kerlerec's  behalf,  and  he 
signed,  if  he  did  not  write,  the  strong  protest  sent 
to  France  against  Rochemore. 

On  recoimnendation,  Kernion  was  promoted  in 
1760  from  Associate  to  Titular  or  Active  Councillor, 
in  the  Superior  Council,  thereby  enabling  him  to 
take  an  important  part  in  the  great  event  so  soon 
to  follow  in  Louisiana.  This  was  the  transfer  of 
Louisiana  by  France  to  Spain.  The  survivors 
among  the  men  who  had  followed  Iberville  and 
Bienville  to  the  discovery  of  Louisiana  had  entered 
upon  the  tranquil  enjoyment  of  the  well-earned  rest 
and  prosperity  of  their  old  age.  Their  sons  were  in 
the  full  strength  of  a  hardy  middle  age,  when  this 
poHtical  chasm  opened  at  their  feet. 

The  story  need  not  be  repeated  except  as  to  the 
role  played  by  Huchet  de  Kernion.  Ulloa  had 
arrived  and  was  assuming  the  reins  of  government 
despite  the  public  protest  of  a  first  indignation  meet- 
ing of  Louisianians.  A  larger  meeting  was  then 
called  and  a  still  stronger  protest,  signed  by  more 
than  five  hundred  of  the  leading  citizens,  was  pre- 
sented to  the  Superior  Council,  asking  the  expulsion 
of  Ulloa  from  the  colony.     This  being  read,  it  was, 


208  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

on  motion  of  Lafreniere,  referred  to  the  Councillors, 
Huchet  de  Kernion  and  Petit  de  Launay,  to  be 
examined  by  them  and  reported  upon.  The  next 
day,  the  Council  raised  to  its  full  strength  by 
appointees  to  fill  the  place  of  absentees,  met  to  hear 
the  report.  Upon  due  consideration  of  it,  Kernion 
and  de  Launay  wrote  a  strong  endorsement  of  the 
petition,  which  the  Council  voted  unanimously  to 
sustain;  and  in  consequence  the  Spanish  Governor 
was  expelled  from  the  colony. 

The  inevitable  result  followed.  O'Reilly  was  sent 
by  Spain  with  a  military  force  to  "pacify  the  colo- 
nists," as  it  was  termed.  This  was  done  by  executing 
and  banishing  the  leaders  of  the  revolt.  Huchet  de 
Kernion  who,  besides  his  official  act,  had  attended  all 
the  public  meetings  and  put  his  name  to  all  the  peti- 
tions against  Spanish  rule  and  the  justicative 
Memorial  of  the  expulsion  of  Ulloa  to  the  govern- 
ment in  France  was,  strange  to  say,  never  called 
to  account  by  the  Spanish  authorities  with  the  other 
patriots,  nor  was  his  name  mentioned  once  as  a 
'^rebel'^  by  Pere  Antoine,  the  priest. 

But  he  did  not  long  survive  the  bloody  death  of 
his  friends  and  relatives.  Bent  with  age  and  sorrow, 
he  died  before  a  year  had  passed,  leaving  one  son, 
Ren6  Huchet  de  Kernion,  who  was  born  in  1739  on 
the  plantation  on  the  Bayou  St.  Jean.  Like  his 
father,  he  was  an  officer  in  the  colonial  troops,  and 
was  retired  with  the  other  French  officers  by  order 
of  the  King  when  the  colony  passed  over  to  Spain. 

In  1767,  two  years  before  the  Spanish  Domination, 
he  married  ''the  high  and  well-born"  Louise  Con- 
stance Chauvin  de  Lery  des  Islets,  daughter  of 
Antoine  Chauvin  de  Lery  des  Islets  and  of  Charlotte 


LABEDOYERE  HUCHET  DE  KERNION  209 

Faucoh  du  Manoir,  thus  entering  the  great  family 
of  the  Chevalier  d'Arensbourg  and  becoming  a 
cousin  of  the  famous  patriot  Lafreniere  and  of 
Joseph  Roy  de  Viller^.  His  witnesses  present  us  to 
the  most  distinguished  citizens  of  the  city  at  the 
time:  the  ChevaHer  de  Glapion;  Trudeau,  Captain 
of  Infantry;  deVillemont  de  Kernion,  and  all  the 
Chauvins;  Boisclair;  des  Islets;  de  Lery;  Hubert 
Bellair;  de  Mazan;  Dreux. 

With  other  French  officers  and  children  of 
Louisiana  patriots,  Huchet  de  Kernion  became  in 
time  reconciled  to  the  Spanish  rule.  During  the 
administration  of  the  greatest  Spaniard  who  ever 
came  to  the  colony,  Galvez,  himself  the  husband  of 
a  Creole  lady,  and  through  her  connected  with  many 
distinguished  Creole  families,  he  was  appointed  by 
the  Spanish  Eang  Alcalde  Ordinaire,  the  first 
office  in  the  Cabildo.  It  was  a  position  of  im- 
portance, dignity  and  distinction,  invested  with  the 
function  of  Judge  and  as  such  ranking  next  to  the 
Governor  of  the  province. 

It  is  noticeable  that  in  official  documents  he,  like 
his  father  and  grandfather,  adhered  to  the  old 
Breton  custom  of  using  the  barred  K —  in  names 
beginning  with  Ker;  signing  himself  Knion 
Kernion. 

He  married  a  second  time;  uniting  himself  to 
Marie  Joseph  Modeste  du  Verges  de  St.  Sauveur, 
daughter  of  Bernard  du  Verges  de  St.  Sauveur,  of 
a  distinguished  family  of  Beam  who  came  to  New 
Orleans  in  the  early  days  of  her  history,  becoming 
Chief  Engineer  of  the  province.  He  showed  himself 
to  be  an  able  officer  under  Bienville  during  the 
Natchez  War,  when  he  surveyed  a  road  for  the 


210  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

passage  of  French  troops  into  the  Chickasaw 
country.  He  also  made  an  important  report  to  the 
government  on  the  mouth  of  the  river,  in  1745. 

Pierre,  his  son  by  his  first  marriage,  married 
Marie  Genevieve  Claire  Jumonville  de  ViUier,  the 
daughter  of  a  retired  Spanish  officer.  From  this 
union  descend  the  Kernion  family  of  to-day.  Celes- 
tine,  his  eldest  daughter,  became  the  first  wife  of 
Charles  LeBreton  des  Chapelles,  the  grandson  of 
Etienne  de  Bore.  Her  sister,  Marie  Rosilde,  became 
LeBreton's  second  wife. 

Chrispin  Charles  LaBedoyere  Huchet  de  Kernion, 
born  in  1796,  became  a  planter  and  was  Uving  on 
the  old  place  on  Bayou  St.  Jean,  when  in  1815  the 
British  Army  seemed  about  to  overwhelm  New 
Orleans.  He  shouldered  his  musket  and  walked  out 
to  the  field  of  Chalmette.  It  is  related  of  him  that, 
at  the  time,  he  was  physically  so  weak  he  could  not 
carry  his  heavy  * 'muzzle-loader''  all  the  way,  and 
that  his  older  and  stronger  brother  had  to  carry  it 
for  him. 

He  married  in  1822  Euph^mie  Arnill  Lambert, 
the  daughter  of  Pierre  Joseph  Lambert  and  Marie 
Constance  Wiltz.  The  miniature  of  the  two,  pre- 
served in  the  family  archives,  represents  faces  of 
youth,  beauty  and  intelligence.  Euphemie  is  es- 
pecially distinguished  by  the  pensive,  mysterious 
expression  of  her  beautiful  eyes.  At  her  death, 
among  her  private  papers  was  found  the  pretty 
legacy  of  a  large  portfolio  of  music,  songs  and  verses, 
copied  in  her  exquisite  handwriting,  collected  as  she 
went  along  from  the  society  that  she  loved  and  that 
loved  such  things — a  private  labor  of  love,  the 
patient  result  of  long  hours  of  rapt  application  and 


LABEDOYERE  HUCHET  DE  KERNION  211 

withdrawal  from  the  busy  world  of  plantation  life 
and  the  domestic  cares  of  a  family  of  nine  children. 

Her  youngest  son,  Anatole  LaBedoyere  Huchet  de 
Kernion,  married  Fannie  Evelina  Campbell  (ac- 
cording to  the  record  a  member  of  the  Argyle 
family),  adopted  daughter  of  Samuel  J.  Peters,  Jr., 
Avhose  wife,  Aspasie  de  la  Villebeuvre,  was  her 
second  cousin.  He  hved  to  add  one  more  episode 
to  the  history  of  his  ancient  family,  for  he  served 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  Civil  War,  in 
the  Twenty-third  Louisiana  Regiment,  and  was  one 
of  the  heroic  soldiers  who  gained  glory  for  their  cause 
in  the  terrible  siege  of  Vicksburg. 

On  his  return,  he  found  that  the  lot  of  the  van- 
quished severed  him  from  the  past  wealth  of  his 
family,  but  not  from  its  proud  fortitude  and  its 
capacity  for  business.  He  '^did  not  stoop  or  He  in 
wait  for  wealth  or  honors,  or  for  worldly  state,"  as 
many  did  in  the  sad  period  of  demoralization  that 
follow^ed  the  Civil  War,  but,  courageously  facing  the 
doom  he  had  incurred,  he  sold  his  ancestral  planta- 
tion and  heroically  engaged  in  a  mercantile  pursuit, 
serving  faithfully  for  twenty  years  in  the  ranks  of  the 
employees  of  the  old  Canal  Bank. 

George  Charles  Huchet  de  Kernion,  the  archivist, 
the  kind  contributor  of  these  notes,  is  his  son. 


CHAPTER  XII 
DE  LIVAUDAIS 

ESNOULD  DE  LIVAUDAIS,  Esnould  Beaumont 
de  Livaudais,  Esnould  Dugue  de  Livaudais.* 

The  sturdy  family  tree  of  the  Livaudais  was  rooted 
in  the  strong  soil  of  Brittany.  Olivier  Esnould  of 
Parame,  1510,  is  the  first  name  it  bears.  OHvier 
Esnould,  1534;  and  Frangois  Esnould,  1559,  continue 
the  record.  With  Briand  Esnould,  1604,  the  family 
life  begins  in  St.  Malo,  where  it  rem^ains  until  1695. 

Jacques  Esnould  de  Livaudais,  Chevalier  of  St. 
Louis,  was  the  first  of  the  family  in  New  Orleans. 
He  was  the  son  of  Jacques  Esnould  de  Livaudais  of 
St.  Malo,  who  married  Marie  Guillette  le  Jaloux, 
1695;  therefore  he  had  the  good  fortune  of  being 
born  during  the  glorious  period  of  St.  Malo's 
history.  As  a  child  he  heard  the  ringing  of  the  city 
bells  and  firing  of  cannon  in  honor  of  the  great 
victories  of  the  mighty  sea  captains  against  the 
English  and  Dutch  vessels.  He  must  have  seen  the 
immortal  ''sea  wolf,''  Duguay  Trouin  himself,  bring- 
ing into  port  his  prizes.  His  own  uncle,  Lavigne 
Voisin,  was  one  of  the  celebrated  corsairs  of  the 
day.  A  lad  of  such  a  city,  such  a  family  and  such  a 
period  could  not  prove  disobedient  to  the  heroic 
spirit  about  him  and  within  him. 

Following  the  example  of  a  brother,  he  embarked 

*  Genealogy  of  the  Livaudais  family  arranged  from  authentic 
records,  by  Alfred  Fortune  Livaudais.     New  Orleans. 

212 


DE  LIVAUDAIS  213 

with  Lavigne  Voisin  to  make  his  apprenticeship  as  a 
seaman.  The  good  termination  of  his  apprentice- 
ship opened  his  way  to  a  position  on  a  ship  of  the 
Company  of  the  Indies.  The  proof  he  gave  of 
courage,  capacity  and  good  seamanship  recom- 
mended him  to  the  directors  of  the  Company,  and, 
in  1720,  before  he  was  twenty-five,  he  was  made 
First  Lieutenant  on  the  vessel  ''La  D^couverte," 
with  a  salary  of  two  hundred  Uvres  a  month  and  a 
''gratification"  of  two  thousand  Uvres  on  his  return, 
a  briUiant  testimonial  in  that  day  of  his  worth  to  his 
employers.  He  continued  his  East  India  voyages 
for  twelve  years  to  such  complete  satisfaction  of  the 
directors  that  they  transferred  him  to  an  important 
post  in  Louisiana.  He  was  made  Pilot  of  the  Port 
of  New  Orleans. 

The  explanation  is  hardly  needed  that,  after  the 
founding  of  the  city  upon  the  Mississippi,  the 
problem  that  confronted  its  founders  was  not  its 
maintenance  as  a  city  but  as  a  port.  A  city  upon 
the  banks  of  a  river  not  navigable  to  large  vessels 
would  have  been  indeed  a  disastrous  speculation  for 
them.  Bienville,  as  we  know,  had  gained  the 
directors  of  the  Law  Company  to  his  project  of  found- 
ing a  city  that,  he  affirmed,  should  be  a  dominating 
port  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  for  France,  as  well  as  an 
outlet  for  the  trade  of  all  the  interior  of  the  continent. 
He  had  maintained  an  obstinate  contention  with 
the  Council  Board  at  Biloxi  to  prove  the  correctness 
of  his  calculations ;  the  Council  Board  maintaining  as 
obstinate  a  fight  in  favor  of  Mobile  or  Biloxi  as  the 
capital  port.  It  was  not  until  the  city  itself  was  laid 
off  and  the  settlement  of  it  begun  that  the  Royal 
Engineer,  de  la  Tour,  practically  ended  the  discussion 


214  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

by  coming  over  from  the  opposition  to  the  side  of 
Bienville  and  in  proof  of  the  feasibility  of  the  latter's 
assertion  sailed  through  the  mouth  of  the  river 
himself  on  the  loaded  vessel  ^^Aventurier,"  accom- 
panied by  his  assistant,  de  Pauger. 

The  letters  of  Bienville  to  the  directors  in  France, 
the  reports  of  de  la  Tour  and  de  Pauger,  and  the 
instructions  of  the  directors  to  their  engineers,  give 
in  detail  the  interesting  history  of  their  strenuous 
efforts  to  solve  the  stupendous  problem  before  them 
— the  problem  that  was  to  be  the  mythical  dragon 
of  the  nineteenth  century  to  river  commissions  and 
engineers  of  the  United  States.  The  changing 
channel,  the  shifting  sand  bars,  the  mud  lumps,  and 
drift  wood  held  in  constant  menace  over  the  city 
for  a  century  and  a  half  the  doom  prophesied  by  its 
enemies  at  the  Council  Board  at  Biloxi. 

De  Pauger,  with  a  masterly  map  of  the  Passes 
and  the  table  of  his  continuous  soundings  of  the 
channel,  was  the  first  one  to  approach  the  problem 
with  systematic  thoroughness;  but  he  died,  leaving 
only  suggestions  of  a  remedy  behind  him.  Among 
them,  it  is  interesting  to  note  a  foreshadowing  of 
Ead's  scheme — the  closing  of  two  of  the  Passes,  and 
the  deepening  of  the  third  by  means  of  jetties,  to 
be  made  of  sunken  vessels  and  driftwood.*  In 
the  time  of  Bienville  and  succeeding  French  Gover- 
nors, a  pilot  was  stationed  at  the  Balize,  whose  duty 
it  was  to  keep  a  record  from  day  to  day  of  the  depth 
changes  in  the  Passes  and  of  the  shifting  of  the 
channel,  and  to  pilot  the  vessels  arriving  from 
France  or  elsewhere. 

In   1734,   Bienville,   who  had  succeeded  P^rier 

*  "Voyages  et  Di^couvertes."    Pierre  Margey.    Vol.  VI. 


DE  LIVAUDAIS  215 

as  Governor  of  Louisiana,  wrote  to  the  Minister  in 
France: 

"We  have  had  the  honor,  M.  Salmon  (the  Commissary)  and  I, 
to  write  to  you  in  favor  of  M.  de  Livaudais,  sent  by  the  King  of 
Louisiana  as  pilot.     He  should  be  made  Captain  of  the  Port." 

In  the  letter  to  which  Bienville  alludes,  he  writes  that  he  "par- 
ticularly recommends  M.  de  Livaudais  as  an  officer  to  be  retained." 

A  marginal  note  says,  "he  is  a  nephew  of  Lavignc  Voisin,  a 
famous  corsair  of  St.  Malo." 

Following  this,  Livaudais  was  made  ''Captain  of 
the  Port,"  a  title  that  should  be  rendered  ''Captain 
or  Surveyor  of  the  Ports,'*  for  it  comprehended  the 
charge  of  all  the  ports  of  Louisiana  on  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  and  the  Atlantic  Coast. 

In  a  voluminous  report  on  the  river  written  in 
1738,  Bienville  and  Salmon,  his  commissary,  give 
an  account  of  the  delay,  danger  and  difficulty  met 
by  vessels  entering  the  river.    He  adds: 

"The  Sieur  de  Livaudais,  who  has  been  a  navigator  for  thirty 
years,  has  been  up  to  the  present  time  of  the  greatest  service  in 
getting  vessels  through  the  Passes,  and  has  by  his  prudence  saved 
them  often  from  accidents.  After  having  served  on  the  corsairs  of 
St.  Malo,  he  was  transferred  to  the  Company  of  the  Indies.  He  de- 
serves, and  it  would  be  proper  to  accord  him,  a  commission." 

In  1760,  Kerlerec,  in  pressing  need  for  powder, 
sent  Livaudais  on  the  armed  transport,  "The 
Opal,*'  to  Vera  Cruz  for  a  supply.  He  left  in  March 
and  returned  in  September  with  the  powder,  having 
encountered  four  British  vessels,  one  of  sixty  guns. 
In  the  chase  that  ensued,  "The  Opal"  managed  to 
keep  her  distance  ahead,  until  she  arrived  in  sight 
of  the  Bahze,  where  Livaudais,  determined  not  to 
lose  his  powder,  took  the  daring  risk  of  bringing 
his  vessel  through  the  Passes  at  night,  although  the 
water  was  low  at  the  time. 


216  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

In  1733  Livaudais  married,  in  New  Orleans, 
Marie  Genevieve  de  la  Source,  ^'daughter  of  an 
honorable  family  of  Mobile/^  From  this  marriage 
issue  the  many  members  of  the  Louisiana  family  of 
the  Livaudais  that  fill  the  branches  of  their  great 
genealogical  tree.  There  is  no  explanation  given 
of  the  subsequent  division  of  the  family  name  into 
Beaumont  and  Dugu6  de  Livaudais  other  than 
the  suggestion  that  it  came  or  was  assumed  from  a 
land  title.* 

There  is  no  Beaumont  recorded  among  the  colonial 
French  officers  in  Louisiana,  and  the  only  Dugu6 
was  Jean  Sidrac  Dugu6,  of  Canadian  origin,  who 
styled  himself  Boisbrillant.  He  was  a  brilliant 
officer  under  Bienville's  first  settlement  at  Mobile. 
It  is  constantly  stated  that  he  was  a  cousin  of  Bien- 
ville, although  there  does  not  appear  to  be  any 
connection  with  the  Lemoyne  family.  According  to 
tradition  the  first  Dugu6  de  Livaudais  had  seventeen 
children,  who  married  early  into  the  prominent 
colonial  families  and  left  behind  them  descendants 
numerous  enough  to  clothe  the  branches  of  the 
family  tree  with  leaves  as  close  set  as  a  five  oak  in 
spring.  The  record,  however,  limits  its  list  to  the 
eldest  sons:  Frangois  Esnould  de  Livaudais,  born 
in  1736,  who  married  P^lagie  de  Vaugine;  and 
Joseph  Esnould  Dugu6  de  Livaudais,  who  married 
Jeanne  Fleurian  de  Morville. 

The  eldest  son  of  Frangois  de  Livaudais  and 
Pelagie  de  Vaugine  was  Frangois  Esnould  de 
Livaudais,  who  married    Charlotte  des  Islets  de- 

*  In  1728,  the  Dugu6s,  "famous  for  their  wealth,"  were  estab- 
lished on  Bayou  St.  Jean.     "The  Louisiana  Historical  Quarterly. 
Vol.  I,  No.  3. 


DE  LIVAUDAIS  217 

Lery.  He  appears  to  be  the  Livaudais  who  shared 
with  Marigny  the  honor  of  being  the  largest  land- 
owner and  wealthiest  citizen  of  New  Orleans  of 
his  time,  and  of  entertaining  the  Royal  Princes  of 
France  on  their  visit  to  the  city,  and,  with  Marigny, 
making  a  generous  loan  of  money  to  them,  although 
Marigny  alone  is  credited  with  this. 

His  son,  bearing  the  same  name  as  himself, 
married  the  great  heiress  of  the  city,  C(^leste  de 
Marigny,  daughter  of  Phihppe  de  Marigny,  from 
whom  she  inherited  what  would  to-day  be  estimated 
as  fabulous  wealth  in  property  situated  in  the 
upper  portion  of  New  Orleans,  which,  joined  to  what 
her  husband  already  possessed,  made  them  the 
owners  of  all  the  "American'^  quarter,  or  uptown 
portion  of  the  city,  just  as  the  Marigny s  remained 
the  owners  of  the  lower,  or  ^'Creole''  quarter.  The 
American  quarter  was  then  an  undeveloped  tract  of 
land  some  of  whose  great  oak  trees  may  still  be 
seen,  the  aborigines  of  the  primeval  forest,  in 
isolated  groups  standing  here  and  there,  in  proud 
defiance  of  property  lines  and  street  demarkations. 

In  recent  years  a  lawsuit  has  brought  the  history 
of  a  part  of  the  property  of  Celeste  de  Marigny  de 
Livaudais  to  mind.  Pierre  Marigny  held  it  under  a 
concession  from  the  French  Government.  It  passed 
from  Celeste  de  Marigny  de  Livaudais  to  her  heir, 
Jacques  Enould  de  Livaudais.  It  was  one  of  his 
heirs  who  conceived  the  idea  of  building  a  military 
academy,  or  Prytaneum,  on  two  squares  of  it, 
bounded  by  St.  Charles  and  Prytania,  Melpomene 
and  Euterpe  Streets.  The  academy  project  was 
abandoned  in  course  of  time;  the  name  of  the 
street,  Prytania,  alone  commemorating  it. 


218  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

The  heirs  sold  the  land  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century  ago.  Celeste,  the  widow  of  Frangois  de 
Livaudais,  with  what  remained  of  her  magnificent 
fortune,  retired  to  Paris  where,  as  the  Marquise 
de  Livaudais,  she  lived  until  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  receiving  to  the  last  with  open 
arms  her  friends  and  relatives  from  New  Orleans, 
and  entertaining  them  in  the  style  of  generous 
hospitality  to  which,  as  a  Marigny,  a  de  Livaudais, 
and  a  New  Orleans  woman,  she  felt  herself,  as  it 
were,  commanded. 

Unfortunately  for  so  distinguished  a  family,  the 
genealogical  tree  gives  no  other  information 
than  the  record  of  births,  marriages  and  deaths — 
too  long  a  list  to  insert  here.  But  we  may  cull  a 
few  of  the  names  bracketed  together  along  the 
branches:  Frangois  Enould  Dugue  de  Livaudais 
and  Ahne  de  la  Chaise;  Henri  Enould  Dugue  de 
Livaudais  and  Celestine  Dreux;  Sophie  Enould 
Dugu6  de  Livaudais  and  Pierre  Auguste  de  la  Chaise; 
Charles  Jacques  Enould  de  Livaudais  and  Eulalie 
Leocadie  LeBreton  des  Chapelles;  Jacques  Philippe 
Enould  Dugue  de  Livaudais  and  Rose  Victoire 
Voisin;  Jules  Barth  Enould  Dugue  de  Livaudais  and 
Marie  Zunia  Trudeau;  Louis  Adolphe  de  Livaudais 
and  Irene  Eulahe  Frederic  de  St.  Ferol. 

The  good  old  names  are  repeated  over  and  over 
again;  the  good  lives  that  flow  from  them  appear 
also  in  a  monotonous  repetition  of  able  men  and 
beautiful,  noble-looking  women.  Joseph  Frangois 
Enould  Dugue  de  Livaudais,  born  about  1784,  was 
the  first  to  sign  and  call  himself  Frangois  Dugu6. 
He  married  Jeanne  Marie  Plique,  and  had,  like  his 
remote  ancestor,  a  goodly  number  of  children, 
who  all  are  known  as  Dugu^s. 


DE  LIVAUDAIS  219 

Henri  Philippe  Dugu6,  the  late  distinguished 
lawyer,  and  Charles  Oscar  Dugu6,  a  local  poet  of 
noble  proportions,  were  his  sons. 

Henri  Philippe  Dugu6  married  Celestine  Dreux, 
the  sister  of  the  Confederate  hero,  Charles  Dreux. 
Caught  in  the  whirlpool  of  the  Civil  War,  he  was 
forced  to  take  refuge  in  Havana.  He  left  his  native 
city  a  man  of  wealth;  he  returned,  like  most  of  his 
confreres  with  nothing  left  of  all  his  former  pos- 
sessions except  his  good  reputation  as  a  lawyer 
and  two  old  slaves  who,  although  free,  insisted 
upon  devoting  to  him  their  services  until  their 
death.  Children  and  grandchildren  survive  him 
to  carry  on  his  good  name  and  tradition. 

A  last  reminiscence  is  given  by  an  old  writer  and 
lover  of  New  Orleans.* 

"There  was  but  one  highway  leading  above  the  river,  and  this 
was  'The  Tchoupitoulas  Road.'  Along  this  road  commencing  about 
Delord,  the  upper  extremity  of  the  Faubourg  Ste.  Marie,  and  extend- 
ing toward  the  magnificent  Livaudais  plantation,  was  a  succession 
of  beautifully  located  villas  and  agricultural  establishments.  All 
along  Tschoupitoulas  Street  there  ran  a  low  levee  planted  with  wiUow 
trees,  and  during  the  season  of  high  water,  when  the  batture  then 
forming  was  thoroughly  immersed,  the  long  western  keel  boats  and 
barges,  as  well  as  the  unseemly  flatboats,  or  chalands,  would  make 
fast  to  these  trees  and  thence  discharge  their  cargoes. 

"After  the  receding  of  the  spring  and  summer  floods,  these  flat- 
boats,  of  enormous  construction  and  unfit  for  a  return  voyage,  would 
be  left  high  and  dry  upon  the  batture  front,  and  then  be  broken  up 
for  fuel  and  building  purposes.  The  strong  side  pieces,  or  gunwales, 
were  used  in  the  suburbs  as  footpaths  or  side  banquettes  f  in  lieu 
of  our  present  brick-paved  sidewalks.  Upon  these  wooden  trails, 
as  it  were,  pedestrians  had  to  make  their  way  through  immense 
vacant  spaces,  for  there  were  but  few  buildings  toward  the  rural 
precincts,  leading  to  the  Livaudais  plantation,  which  constituted 
that  portion  of  New  Orleans  which  now  forms  the  Fourth  District. 

*  "New  Orleans  As  It  Was."     Henry  C.  Castellanos. 
f  Sidewalks  in  New  Orleans  are  still  called  banquettes. 


220  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

"On  the  way  to  that  wealthy  estate,  the  river  front  was  lined  with 
a  continuous  series  of  delightful  rural  residences,  surrounded  with 
orange  hedges,  orchards  and  well-tended  gardens.  The  great 
Macarty  crevasse,  in  the  spring  of  1816,  submerged  the  rear  portions 
of  the  numerous  plantations.  The  Livaudais  estate  was  one  of  the 
heaviest  sufferers  from  this  calamity.  A  great  misfortune  this,  for 
Mr.  Francois  Livaudis.  The  planting  of  a  crop  or  several  hundred 
hogsheads  only  yielded  twenty-eight  hogsheads  of  sugar;  and  the 
splendid  residence,  commenced  about  that  time,  was  never  finished, 
affording  even  to  these  latter  days  the  spectacle  of  an  abandoned 
castle,  that  went  afterward  by  the  name  of  the  'Haunted  House' 
(near  Washington  Avenue). 

"The  value  of  this  plantation  became  greatly  enhanced  on  ac- 
count of  its  being  raised  several  feet  by  the  remaining  deposit,  or 
alluvial  settlement,  of  the  Mississippi  water.  A  company  of  specu- 
lators acquired  by  purchase  a  great  part  of  this  estate,  which  is 
now  the  beautiful  Garden  District,  and  which  took  its  rise  from 
this  very  circumstance  of  the  overflow." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

SONIAT  DU  FOSSAT 

\  CHARMING  bit  of  family  reminiscence  is 
-^^  conveyed  in  a  few  simple  lines  written  by  the 
late  Charles  T.  Soniat  du  Fossat  for  the  Louisiana 
State  Historical  Society: 

"While  visiting  the  great  Paris  Exposition  in  1900,  I  had  the 
pleasure  of  receiving  a  charming  invitation  from  my  cousin,  Henri 
de  Pousargues,  a  General  of  the  French  Army,  the  owner  of  the 
Chateau  du  Fossat,  the  cradle  of  the  family  of  Soniat  du  Fossat." 
He  goes  on  to  describe  it:  "In  a  charming  valley  of  the  picturesque 
stream,  the  Lot,  near  its  juncture  with  the  Garonne,  the  chateau 
appeared  a  very  citadel  of  strength.  Built  of  solid  stone  and 
masonry,  it  had  withstood  well  the  ravages  of  time.  The  grand  old 
oaks  at  the  entrance — hoary  with  age — seemed  to  have  braved 
numerous  tempests.  It  was  in  1538  that  my  ancestor,  Francois  de 
Saunhac  de  Belcastel,  took  possession  of  the  chateau,  which  has 
been  continuously  owned  by  the  family  ever  since." 

Taken  into  the  spacious  rooms  where  the  heir- 
looms of  the  family  were  stored,  our  writer  found 
among  them  papers  and  documents  relating  to  the 
American  branch  of  the  family,  which  his  kind  host 
allowed  him  to  bring  to  New  Orleans  with  him. 
Among  them  was  an  old  and  faded  manuscript, 
written  in  French,  entitled  ^'A  Brief  History  of 
Louisiana/^  The  document  was  unknown  to  Mr. 
Charles  Soniat  du  Fossat,  a  student  himself  of 
Louisiana  history.  The  page  where  the  name  of 
the  author  should  have  been  signed  was  torn;  the 
handwriting  was  peculiar  and  difficult  to  decipher. 

221 


222  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

He,  nevertheless,  translated  and  published  it; 
sought  and  found  the  name  of  the  author,  who  was 
the  Chevalier  Guy  Soniat  du  Fossat,  the  first  of 
his  name  in  Louisiana  and  the  founder  of  the  Ameri- 
can branch  of  the  family.  Born  in  the  chateau  in 
1726,  he  entered  the  French  Army  as  volunteer  in 
1746.  By  1747  he  was  a  lieutenant  in  the  Regiment 
of  Monaco  and  in  1748  was  wounded  in  the  siege  of 
Maestrich. 

In  1751,  during  the  reign  of  Louis  XV,  when  the 
Marquis  de  Vaudreuil,  Governor  of  Louisiana,  made 
an  appeal  for  troops,  France  sent  a  reinforcement  of 
five  thousand  men.  Among  them  was  the  young 
lieutenant,  Guy  Saunhac  du  Fossat.  He  was  sta- 
tioned in  New  Orleans.  Following  the  example  of 
young  French  officers  of  family,  he  married  shortly 
after  his  arrival  in  the  city,  taking  as  his  vdfe 
Claudine  Dreux,  the  daughter  of  one  of  the  most 
prominent  famiHes  of  the  city — that  of  Mathurin 
Dreux,  the  ^'Sieur  de  Gentilly,''  the  aristocratic  and 
wealthy  planter  on  the  Bayou  St.  Jean. 

Being  an  engineer  of  ability,  Soniat  was  appointed 
a  captain  in  1759,  and  sent  to  Illinois  to  construct 
and  repair  forts.  Owing  to  him.  Fort  Chartres 
and  the  Kaskaskias  were  put  in  a  state  to  ensure 
the  protection  of  the  Western  colonies  for  years. 
He  rendered  good  service  in  the  colonies  against  the 
English,  and  was  recommended  by  Kerlerec  for  the 
Cross  of  St.  Louis.  It  is  not  definitely  known  when 
the  ancient  name  of  Saunhac  was  changed  to  its 
Louisiana  version,  Soniat. 

He  was  recalled  to  New  Orleans  in  1761,  where  he 
continued  in  the  service  of  France  until  1766,  when 
UUoa  came  to  Louisiana  to  take  possession  of  the 


SON  I  AT  DU  FOSSAT  223 

colony  in  the  name  of  the  King  of  Spain.  In 
accordance  with  a  permission  granted  by  the  King  of 
France,  in  1769,  he  entered  the  service  of  the  King 
of  Spain  in  Louisiana.  After  O'Reilly  had  assumed 
control  of  the  colony,  in  1769,  he  was  made  captain 
in  the  Battahon  of  Louisiana  and  was  therefore  one 
of  the  officers  who,  according  to  Gayarr6,  impressed 
O'Reilly  so  forcibly  with  their  distinction  of  appear- 
ance that  he  regretted  his  inability  to  take  some 
of  them  with  him  to  Spain,  as  specimens  of  the  new 
subjects  acquired  by  His  Catholic  Majesty 

In  1772,  Soniat  was  retired  from  active  service 
and  was  appointed  Alcalde  by  Unzaga.  Returning 
to  civil  life  he  bought  in  1778,  from  the  Ursuhne 
Nuns,  the  plantation  seven  miles  below  the  city  of 
New  Orleans,  which  he  afterwards  exchanged  with 
Bernard  Marigny  for  the  one  above  the  city  on  the 
river  still  retained  in  the  family.  Marigny  even- 
tually sold  the  tract  to  Jacques  Phihppe  Villerd,  and 
it  is  known  in  history  as  a  part  of  the  field  of  Chal- 
mette,  upon  which  was  fought  the  Battle  of  New 
Orleans. 

In  1786  Soniat  was  reappointed  Alcalde  by  Gover- 
nor Miro,  and  in  1794  he  died  and  was  buried  in 
New  Orleans.  From  his  marriage  with  Frangoise 
Claudine  Dreux  he  had  three  sons:  Frangois  Guy 
Soniat  du  Fossat,  who  married,  first,  Anne  Arnout; 
second,  Louise  Duralde;  Joseph  Soniat  du  Fossat, 
and  Juan  Baptiste,  under  whose  name  the  significant 
and  discreet  record  is  written — ''II  reussit  aupres 
de  la  Reine  d'Espagne.'^  He  had  (consequently  we 
may  assume)  to  leave  Spain  and  come  to  Louisiana 
in  1800.     He  died  unmarried. 

Frangois  Guy,  the  eldest  son,  a  soldier  like  his 


224  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

father,  followed  the  campaigns  of  Galvez  against 
the  English.  He  was  present  at  the  capture  of 
Baton  Rouge  and  Manchac,  and  witnessed  the 
storming  of  Mobile  and  Pensacola.  For  signal 
bravery  on  the  field  of  battle  he  was  promoted  to 
lieutenant  in  the  Battalion  of  Louisiana  in  1780, 
after  which  he  was  recalled  to  France  by  the  death 
of  his  uncle,  le  Baron  Jean  du  Fossat,  to  take  posses- 
sion of  the  chateau,  with  the  title  of  Baron. 

He  presented  a  memorial  to  Louis  XVIII,  asking 
as  recompense  of  his  services  the  Cross  of  St.  Louis. 
To  support  his  claim,  he  mentions  also  the  services 
rendered  by  his  father  to  France;  among  them 
a  ''Memorial"  of  Louisiana.  It  seems  doubtful 
whether  the  manuscript  ever  left  the  author^s  pos- 
session. It  is  probable  that,  once  finished,  it  was 
laid  away  in  the  old  cabinet  among  his  family  papers, 
and  that  it  lay  there  until  Mr.  Charles  Soniat  of 
New  Orleans  discovered  it. 

There  is  no  mention  of  it  by  other  historians  and  no 
evidence  of  its  ever  having  been  read  even  by  such 
meticulously  careful  historians  as  Gayarr^  and 
Martin,  or  by  his  kinsman,  Alcee  Fortier.  The 
author  himself  quotes  from  no  written  authorities ;  in 
fact,  when  he  wrote  there  would  have  been  none 
available  to  him.  He  tells  a  plain  historical  story 
as  he  heard  it,  with  a  simpUcity  and  an  originality 
of  judgment  which  makes  him  a  refreshing  com- 
panion over  a  road  that  has  become  monotonous  and 
dusty  from  constant  travel  upon  it. 

The  geographical  description  of  the  province 
with  which  it  opens,  is  what  we  are  accustomed  to, 
except  when  he  relates  such  ''peculiarities"  as  in  the 
village  of  the  Cohoes,  ''where  are  to  be  seen  tombs 


SONIAT  DU  FOSSAT  225 

ranging  from  seven  to  eight  feet  long,  and  they 
seemed  to  have  contained  bodies  of  that  size,  judging 
by  the  skeletons  found  therein,"  to  which  he  added 
his  own  version  of  that  weird,  apochryphal  legend 
of  'The  Man  Plant." 

"In  going  up  the  Missouri  River,  about  three  hundred  leagues, 
some  travelers  discovered  on  its  banks  the  trunk  of  a  plant 
resembhng  a  human  figure.  Having  approached  near  enough  they 
saw  that  it  looked  like  the  body  of  a  woman,  with  arms,  legs,  hands 
and  breasts.  At  the  extremities  of  the  hands,  fingers  and  breasts 
there  were  filaments  serving  as  roots,  leading  into  the  ground,  and 
the  head  was  crowned  with  a  small  tree,  with  some  fohage.  The 
travelers  searched  in  the  vicinity  and  found  others  of  the  same 
kind  and  after  having  dug  to  the  roots  of  the  plants,  they  found 
bodies  of  the  same  nature  as  the  first,  designating  males  and  females. 
The  travelers,  with  their  sense  of  curiosity  and  wonder,  brought 
with  them  to  the  Illinois  post  a  few  of  the  curiosities,  which  brought 
about  several  theories.  Some  contended  that  it  was  a  root  to  which 
nature  had  given  the  form  of  a  human  figure.  Others  argued  that 
they  were  real  bodies  that  had  been  buried  standing,  according  to 
the  custom  of  certain  nations,  and  that  they  had  vegetated  in  a 
soil  proper  thereto.  The  first  theory  prevailed  over  the  other. 
Awaiting  further  investigation  which  may  settle  the  question,  we 
had  in  our  possession  an  arm  from  said  plant,  which  resembled  in 
every  respect  the  arm  of  a  man." 

It  is,  however,  Soniat's  frank  and  judicial  opinion 
upon  historical  events  and  men  of  his  day  that  is  of 
most  value  to  the  student,  weary  of  the  constant 
repetition  of  the  almost  mechanical  opinions  found 
in  other  histories. 

"It  was,"  he  says,  "the  dissensions  between  Bienville  and  Noyan, 
captain  of  the  vessels  and  commander  of  the  troops,  that  were  the 
cause  of  Bienville's  failure,  in  his  expedition  against  the  Chickasaws 
and  Cherokees."  Of  the  Governors,  as  an  observer  at  close  range, 
he  says,  "M.  de  Vaudreuil  was  kind  and  peaceful  and  did  much  for 
public  welfare.  .  .  .  M.  de  Kerlerec  was  a  man  full  of  vanity 
and  of  an  intriguing  and  selfish  disposition.    ...    He  considered 


226  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Louisiana  as  his  prey  and  did  all  he  could  to  reap  all  the  fruits  pos- 
sible. .  .  .  Under  him  the  good  will  and  cordiality  which  had 
existed  between  the  inhabitants  during  previous  administrations, 
vanished  entirely.  During  the  time  of  Bienville  and  Perier,  those 
who  composed  the  colony  Uved  in  perfect  accord  with  one  another, 
so  much  so  that  they  seemed  to  form  part  of  one  large  family  visiting 
one  another  and  holding  reunions  and  meetings  at  which  harmony 
and  gayety  invariably  prevailed.  The  food  products,  and  hunting 
and  fishing,  were  in  abundance.  The  women  were  neatly  dressed 
without  ostentation.    Living  was  cheap." 

His  impression  of  Ulloa,  the  sinister  author  of 
Louisiana's  tragedy,  bears  out  the  judgment  of  the 
* 'patriots"  upon  him,  and  his  description  of  the 
revolt  against  Spanish  authority  is  the  coolest- 
worded  one  of  the  event  that  we  have 

"Ulloa  had  been  the  traveling  companion  of  M.  de  la  Condamine 
(in  Peru)  but  did  not  create  the  impression  in  any  one,  by  his  ap- 
pearance or  conversation,  that  he  had  taken  any  great  part  in  these 
discoveries  ...  a  man  of  talent,  very  self-opinionated,  incapable 
of  putting  in  his  official  acts  such  care  and  attention  as  were  neces- 
sary to  gain  the  confidence  of  a  people  just  experiencing  a  change  of 
government.    .    .    . 

"O'Reilly,  who  simulated  good  will  towards  the  inhabitants 
(deceiving  the  revolutionists),  arrived  quietly  in  New  Orleans,  and 
made  all  preparations  for  disembarking,  as  if  an  army  were  before 
him,  ready  to  oppose  him.  ...  He  took  possession  of  the  colony, 
a  formality  which  his  predecessor  had  neglected.  .  .  .  Unzaga, 
reputed  to  have  been  unjust  in  other  governmental  positions  and 
who,  in  the  beginning,  had  by  his  coarse,  repellent  manners  given 
poor  hopes,  became  popular  and  was  well  liked  and  applauded." 

To  the  usual  heavy  historical  laudation  of  Galvez, 
Soniat  substitutes  new  and  original  version  of  his 
character  and  campaigns,  written  with  the  sharp 
pen  of  a  discriminating  French  officer — perhaps 
dictated  by  his  son  who  fought  under  Galvez. 

"Don  Bernardo  de  Galvez  succeeded  Don  Luis  de  Unzaga;  he 
was  the  nephew  of  a  Minister  of  that  name  who  ruled  Spain  and  who, 


SONIAT  DU  FOSSAT  227 

having  no  male  children  of  his  own,  took  occasion  to  favor  his 
nephew,  who  was  not  slow  in  taking  advantage  of  the  good  will  of 
his  superior.  He  started  his  nephew's  fortune  by  sending  him  to 
Louisiana  in  the  capacity  of  Colonel  and  Governor  ad  interim. 

"That  Minister,  well  posted  concerning  the  secrets  of  the  Cabinet, 
saw  that  Louisiana  was  destined  to  be  the  siege  of  war,  and  the 
place  where  his  nephew  could  make  his  mark.  He  furnished  him  the 
means  to  that  end  in  his  capacity  as  Minister  of  'Indies,'  and  he 
planned  everything  so  advantageously  that  an  officer  with  any 
ordinary  capacity  should  have  succeeded  within  a  year.  Don 
Bernardo  de  Galvez  was  subsequently  appointed  Governor,  with 
full  title.  He  had  properly  made  use  of  his  time  in  endearing  himself 
to  the  inhabitants  by  means  of  flattery,  caresses  and  even  by  pro- 
curing to  them  new  pleasures.  He  appeared  sympathetic,  just  and 
disinterested,  even  assisting  the  natives.  His  conduct,  supported 
by  his  uncle,  conciliated  everybody.  He  was  not  slow  in  making  use 
of  all  the  advantages  that  were  thrown  in  his  path  by  the  Minister 
who,  ever  mindful  of  all  that  could  turn  to  his  advantage,  and 
seeing  that  war  was  inevitable  with  England,  apprised  his  nephew 
beforehand  that  war  would  be  declared;  by  which  means,  Bernardo 
de  Galvez  knew  of  the  declaration  of  war  in  Louisiana  before  it  was 
known  in  Madrid,  and  he  acted  in  consequence.    .    .    . 

"Galvez,  having  made  the  necessary  arrangements,  issued  a 
proclamation  summoning  the  colony  to  arms,  and  marched  with 
his  forces  towards  post  Manchac.  There  he  pubUshed  the  news  of 
war,  and  by  that  means  surprised  the  EngUsh,  who  were  in  pos- 
session of  that  fort.  The  latter,  finding  it  impossible  to  defend  that 
post,  which  was  of  little  importance,  abandoned  it  and  retreated  to 
Baton  Rouge,  which  they  fortified  in  haste,  the  day  after  their 
retreat.  During  the  night,  Don  Bernardo  de  Galvez,  apprised  of  the 
evacuation,  disposed  his  troops  to  advantage,  ordered  the  assault 
and  entered  the  fort  which  had  only  twenty  men,  who  made  no 
resistance. 

"The  news  of  this  conquest,  conveyed  to  the  Court  under  the 
most  glowing  colors,  brought  to  Galvez  the  title  of  Brigadier. 
...  He  employed  part  of  the  winter  in  making  preparations  for 
the  siege  of  Mobile.  He  demanded  of  the  authorities  of  Havana 
men  and  vessels  for  the  purpose  of  attacking  it  with  advantage  and 
with  all  possible  security.    .    .    . 

"He  embarked  with  a  small  number  of  soldiers  and  inhabitants 
of  the  colony,  and  arrived  on  the  ninth  of  March,  1780,  in  Mobile 


228  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Bay,  where  a  severe  tempest  destroyed  several  of  his  ships,  which 
foundered  in  the  pass  of  the  bay.  These  ships  carried  many  men, 
who  spent  more  than  thirty  hours  on  the  debris  of  the  vessels.  The 
calm,  which  came  in  due  time,  permitted  the  launches,  or  ship's 
boats,  which  had  resisted  the  tempest,  to  pick  up  the  unfortunates, 
who,  with  eyes  and  hands  raised  towards  the  heavens,  were  implor- 
ing aid  and  succor.  Their  prayers  were  answered  and  they  were  all 
saved.  .  .  .  They  were  landed  on  the  coast  of  the  bay.  At  that 
moment  the  army  was  in  such  a  bad  condition  that  if  the  Enghsh 
had  had  a  single  detachment  on  the  parapets,  as  they  should  have 
had,  they  would  have  taken  all  these  unfortunates  that  had  been 
saved  from  the  storm,  and  thereby  not  only  would  they  have  pre- 
served their  post  but  would  have  easily  conquered  Louisiana,  which 
had  been  left  without  a  defender.    .    .    . 

"After  that,  there  remained  to  the  English  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
only  a  single  possession  which  was  Pensacola.  .  .  .  Galvez  was 
anxious  to  effect  this  conquest.  He  finally  undertook  it,  and,  with 
that  end  in  view,  sent  M.  Miro  to  Havana,  to  ask  for  all  that  was 
necessary  for  the  enterprise.  He  obtained  soldiers,  vessels  and 
artillery.    All  left  in  the  year  1781. 

"Galvez  succeeded  in  passing  the  fort  and  its  artillery,  and  landed 
without  obstacle.  The  English  offered  feeble  opposition.  .  .  . 
Half  of  the  garrison  perished;  the  fortification,  which  was  of  wood, 
was  burnt.  .  .  .  Galvez  took  possession  of  his  conquest  and  came 
back  triumphant  to  New  Orleans.  Don  Bernardo  de  Galvez  gathered 
all  the  fruits  of  that  war.  He  obtained  promotion  from  Captain  of 
Infantry  to  Lieutenant-General  and  Viceroy  of  Mexico,  where  he 
died. 

"When  Galvez  died,  Don  Estevan  Miro  became  Governor  of  the 
Province  of  Louisiana.  His  solicitude  for  the  welfare  of  his  people, 
his  honesty  of  purpose,  and  his  sense  of  justice,  made  him  an  ad- 
mirable Governor.  He  was  always  attentive  to  duty  and  ever  ready 
to  obtain  from  the  Court  of  Spain  new  favors  for  his  people.  He 
used  his  best  endeavors  to  check  the  evils  brought  about  by  habits 
of  luxury,  which  had  been  allowed  to  spread  by  the  actions  of  his 
predecessors.  ...  M.  Miro  corrected  as  much  as  he  could  the 
many  disorders  that  had  crept  into  the  community.  He  had 
already  succeeded  in  giving  splendor  and  ^clat  to  all  the  affairs  of 
the  colony.    .    .    ." 

The  author  was  in  New  Orleans  when  the  great 


SONIAT  DU  FOSSAT  229 

conflagration    occurred     and    gives    this    account 
of   it: 

"On  Good  Friday  of  the  year  1788,  a  fire  was  caused  by  the 
neghgence  of  a  woman  who  thought  of  crowning  her  devotion  by 
making  a  small  altar  in  her  house.  She  left  several  candles  burning 
around  it  and  went  off  to  take  her  dinner.  During  her  absence,  a 
candle  fell  on  some  ornaments  which  took  fire,  and  the  house  in  an 
instant  was  in  flames,  which  communicated  to  the  adjoining  house. 
The  wind,  which  was  strong  at  the  time,  spread  the  fire  to  the 
balance  of  the  city,  which  in  two  hours  was  consumed.    ,    .    . 

"It  would  be  difficult  to  depict  the  despair  of  the  poor  unfortunate 
persons,  whose  properties  had  suffered  from  the  fire;  these  unhappy 
creatures  who  two  hours  before  had  enjoyed  vast  and  commodious 
lodgings,  with  enough  affluence  to  make  one's  life  agreeable  and 
easy,  saw  themselves  and  their  children,  in  a  moment,  without 
resource.  Some  of  them  were  obliged  to  take  refuge  in  the  woods, 
without  necessary  provisions  and  clothes.  Some  slept  without  cover 
under  the  broad  canopy  of  the  heavens.  It  was  in  that  moment  of 
necessity  that  the  tender  solicitude  of  Governor  Miro  showed  itself. 
He  opened  his  house  to  all  who  were  seeking  shelter,  and  he  dispensed 
succor  to  the  distressed  families,  caused  the  Royal  stores,  which  had 
escaped  the  flames,  to  be  opened;  and  he  distributed  the  provisions 
therein  contained.  Recourse  was  had  to  the  surrounding  country 
for  help;  permits  were  given  to  vessels  to  bring  goods  from  abroad; 
in  short  the  Governor  administered  as  a  good  paterfamilias.  .  .  . 
Poverty  stared  the  people  in  the  face;  the  inhabitants  were  in  a 
state  of  consternation;  one-sixth  of  the  citizens  died. 

"Governor  Miro  tried  to  divert  their  attention  and  alleviate  their 
sorrow  by  his  care,  his  attention  and  his  purse.  He  gave  balls  and 
amusements  in  order  to  lessen  their  sorrows  and  to  divert  their 
minds.  .  .  .  Eight  hundred  fine  and  commodious  houses  valued 
on  an  average  at  three  thousand  dollars  each  were  destroyed,  with- 
out prospect  on  the  part  of  the  owners  of  ever  recovering  anything 
except  perhaps  the  bare  hope  of  receiving  some  day  some  relief 
from  the  King." 

After  having  spoken  of  Louisiana's  soil,  the  author 
says  of  the  Creoles: 

"Creoles  are  defined  to  be  the  children  of  Europeans  born  in  the 
colony.     They  in  general  measure  about  five  feet,  six  inches,  in 


230  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

height;  they  are  all  well  shaped  and  of  agreeable  figure;  they  are 
Uvely,  alert,  and  agile;  notwithstanding  the  great  heat  of  this 
climate,  they  are  laborious.  They  are  born  with  ambition  and  an 
honest  self  esteem.  They  are  endowed  with  a  natural  disposition 
for  all  sciences,  arts  and  exercises  that  amuse  society.  They  excel 
in  dancing,  fencing,  hunting,  and  in  horsemanship.  Nature  has 
favored  them  with  an  active  and  penetrating  mind;  they  are  capable 
of  being  easily  instructed.  The  lack  of  teachers  renders  their 
education  somewhat  incomplete,  and  it  must  be  said,  in  all  justice, 
that  among  the  many  quaUties  which  they  possess  are  pohteness, 
bravery,  and  benevolence.  They  are  good  fathers,  good  mothers, 
good  friends,  and  good  kinsmen.  The  women  besides  having  the 
qualities  above  enumerated  are  agreeable  in  figure  and  seldom 
deformed.  They  make  good  mothers  and  are  devoted  to  their 
husbands  and  children." 

The  record  closes  all  too  soon  at  the  end  of  the 
year  1791,  when  the  administration  of  Miro  ter- 
minated and  that  of  Carondelet  began,  the  author 
dying  in  1794,  during  the  incipient  agitation  that  was 
to  result  in  the  recession  of  the  colony  to  France  and 
its  transfer  to  the  United  States.  The  last  pages  of 
the  manuscript  are  devoted  to  a  description  of  birds, 
reptiles  and  animals  of  Louisiana,  narrating  many 
curious  personal  experiences.  One  of  them  about  a 
crocodile  seems  worth  quoting: 

"A  negro  woman  who  was  washing  clothes  on  a  bridge  near  the 
water's  edge  was  perceived  by  a  crocodile,  which  came  swiftly 
swimming  just  under  the  surface  of  the  water,  and  he  tried  to 
snap  her  by  the  hand,  but  she  saw  the  creature  and  ran  away. 
The  crocodile,  after  several  unsuccessful  attempts,  finding  he  could 
not  accompHsh  his  end,  passed  under  the  bridge  and  caught  the 
negro  woman's  clothes  from  behind.  Luckily  I  was  within  reach  with 
my  gun,  and  as  she  yelled,  I  flew  to  her  rescue  and  released  her  from 
the  clutches  of  that  beast  which  would,  beyond  a  doubt,  have  dragged 
her  into  the  water  but  for  my  opportune  presence  and  assistance." 

Guy  de  Saunhac  (Soniat)  and  Claudine  Frangoise 
Dreux  left  the  following  children:  Frangoise;  Agathe 


SON  I  AT  DU  FOSSAT  231 

Antoinette,  who  married  Jean  Enoul  de  Beaumont 
de  Livaudais;  Frangois  Guy,  who  married  C^cile 
de  Lassudrie,  daughter  of  Jacques  de  Lassudrie  and 
of  Marguerite  de  Toucheboeuf;  Lucie;  Jeanne; 
EUzabeth,  married  to  Antoine  Doriocourt;  Guy 
(Joseph),  married  first  to  Marie  Anne  Arnoult, 
second,  to  Louise  Duralde  (sister  of  the  wife  of 
Governor  Claiborne);  Marie  EmiUe,  married  to 
Jean  Baptiste  Bermudez;  CataUna;  ChevaUer  Jean 
Baptiste,  unmarried. 

The  children  of  Guy  Joseph  Soniat  du  Fossat  and 
Marie  Anne  Aenoult,  were:  Chevalier  Guy  Joseph, 
who  died  in  France;  Joseph;  Pierre  Antoine;  Jean 
Ursin,  who  married  C^lestine  AUain;  Frangois  Guy. 

There  were  nine  children  of  Guy  Joseph  and  Louise 
Duralde  (the  sister  of  Clarisse  Duralde,  wife  of 
Governor  Claiborne):  Edmond;  Charlotte  Adine; 
Martin  Valmont;  Charles  Meloncy;  Valerie; 
Gustave;  C^lestine;  Joseph  Th^ophile;  and  Charles 
Theodore,  married  to  Marie  Am^naide  Labranche, 
daughter  of  Lucien  Labranche  and  Mathilde  Fortier. 

The  children  of  Charles  Theodore  and  Am61ie 
Labranche  were:  Lucien;  Charles  Theodore;  Louise, 
who  married  Amed^e  Fortier;  Gustave  Valerien, 
married  to  Louise  Marie  Sarpy;  Meloncy  Charles, 
married  to  Louise  Anne  Exil^e  Fortier — named  for 
the  sad  period  in  which  she  was  born,  after  the  Civil 
War,  when  Louisiana  seemed  indeed  an  exile  from 
her  once  proud  state. 

This  brings  the  line  to  the  present  generation,  and 
notably  to  Mr.  Charles  T.  Soniat,  to  whom  we  are 
indebted  for  the  finding  and  publishing  of  the  historic 
memoir  of  his  great-grandfather.  He  was  born  on 
the  plantation  home  of  his  father — the  Tchoupi- 


232  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

toulas  plantation  in  Jefferson  Parish,  obtained  from 
Bernard  Marigny  in  1805.  Barely  thirteen  years  of 
age  when  the  Civil  War  broke  out  he,  like  all  the 
spirited  youths  in  Louisiana,  was  fired  with  the 
passion  of  arms.  To  thwart  his  determination  to 
join  the  Southern  army,  in  which  his  brother  Lucien 
had  already  enlisted,  his  father,  on  the  fall  of 
New  Orleans  to  the  Federal  forces,  sent  him  to 
France.  Until  the  end  of  the  war,  he  remained  with 
his  uncle  Valmont  Soniat  du  Fossat  in  Paris,  where 
he  completed  his  education. 

On  his  return  to  New  Orleans,  he  studied  law  in 
the  office  of  his  relative,  Edmond  Bermudez,  after- 
wards Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Louisiana.  Upon  graduation,  finding  the  practice 
of  law  did  not  agree  with  his  tastes,  he  obtained  the 
commission  of  Notary  Public.  To  the  duties  of  this 
office  he  devoted  the  energies  of  his  fife  with  so  much 
success  that  the  title  of  ^'Perfect  Notary"  was  given 
him.  The  good  old  name  that  he  bore,  the  prestige 
of  family  and  race,  his  courtesy  of  bearing  and 
polished  manners,  constituted  him  in  the  eyes  of 
society  the  perfect  type  of  a  New  Orleans  gentleman, 
as  it  is  perhaps  fatuously  called;  and  he  became  to 
the  beaux  and  belles  of  his  day  the  perfect  man  of 
the  world,  as  he  became  to  the  Bar  the  perfect 
notary. 

But  it  is  not  by  such  qualifications  that  the  great 
grandson  of  the  first  historian  of  Louisiana  is  to  be 
remembered.  Far  otherwise.  He  became,  for  useful 
services  to  his  State  and  people,  as  the  prophet  says, 
"a  nail  in  a  sure  place."  Always  a  student  of 
Louisiana  history,  he  became  an  active  and  zealous 
member  of  the  Louisiana  Historical  Society,  con- 


SONIAT  DU  FOSSAT  233 

tributing  to  its  publications  papers  written  with 
scholarly  preparation  upon  subjects  that  he  gathered 
from  a  rich  field  all  his  own — that  of  notarial  records. 

In  1908,  he  published  a  transcript  of  a  volume 
of  original  documents  concerning  the  history  of 
Louisiana,  1679-1769 — the  manuscript*  being  repro- 
duced with  all  possible  fidelity,  a  storehouse  of 
reference  whose  value  is  obvious  and  above  praise. 
He  also  donated  to  the  Louisiana  Historical  Society  f 
the  chronological  statement  of  papers  and  docu- 
ments concerning  the  history  of  Louisiana,  obtained 
by  him  from  the  National  Historical  Archives  of 
Madrid,  accompanied  by  a  letter  from  Don  Miguel 
Gomez  del  Campillo,  who  had  prepared  the  state- 
ment. 

^'His  Titles  to  the  Jesuit  plantation'*  is  in  truth,  a 
priceless  document  of  historical  and  legal  authority 
upon  an  intricate  question — that  of  the  land  grants 
of  the  French  Government  to  the  first  settlers  around 
New  Orleans.  As  it  need  hardly  be  repeated,  Bien- 
ville and  his  followers  (not  inaptly  called  ''Land 
Grabbers")  obtained  from  their  government,  well 
in  advance  of  the  foundation  of  New  Orleans,  con- 
cessions covering  all  the  land  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
site  already  selected  for  the  future  city.  Both  banks 
of  the  Mississippi  were  sliced  into  plantations,  so 
to  speak,  from  the  river  back  to  the  Gulf.  These 
plantations,  in  course  of  time,  were  sold  or  divided 
by  inheritance  or  marriage  settlements,  and  after- 
wards reunited  by  purchase. 

*  Vol.  I.  Publications  of  the  Louisiana  Historical  Society.  He 
makes  acknowledgment  to  Mr.  William  Beer,  Librarian  of  the 
Howard  Memorial  Library  for  valuable  assistance. 

t  Vol.  IV.    Publications  of  the  Louisiana  Historical  Society. 


234  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

The  Jesuits  acquired  the  Bienville  concession,  the 
most  valuable  of  all  the  concessions  lying  above  the 
city.  Their  expulsion  and  the  confiscation  of  their 
property  threw  the  land  back  into  the  hands  of 
speculators.  Soniat's  researches  into  the  title  of 
the  Jesuits  led  him  into  the  densest  thickest  of 
genealogical  records  and  chains  of  titles.  He  recon- 
structed the  first  plans  of  concessions  on  the  banks 
of  the  river  and,  link  by  link,  connected  them  with 
the  corresponding  chains  of  family  transactions.  He 
transcribed  it  all  with  notarial  neatness,  precision 
and  accuracy  in  a  great  ledger,  with  a  mass  of 
additional  information,  gathered  together  from  per- 
sonal observation,  family  traditions  and  newspaper 
articles.  In  short,  he  furnished  so  full  and  complete 
a  store  of  historical  gatherings  that  a  student,  in  the 
vast  ease  and  comfort  it  affords  to  research  work,  is 
tempted  to  exclaim:  ^'Were  all  other  land  and 
family  records  of  New  Orleans  destroyed,  the  data 
connecting  family  and  property  together  could  be 
recovered  from,  this  ledger  alone !'^ 

The  immense  work,  a  labor  of  love,  was  carried 
through  privately;  and  at  his  death  was  modestly 
left,  with  his  notarial  business  and  office,  to  his 
brother  Meloncy,  also  a  notary,  who  holds  it  in 
trust  and  administers  it  for  the  benefit  of  the  history 
of  New  Orleans  and  its  students. 

Charles  Soniat  died  in  1918  in  his  home,  situated 
between  the  two  streets  of  his  name,  Soniat  and 
Dufossat,  and  was  laid  to  rest  with  his  fathers  in  the 
old  tomb  whose  preparation  he  had  personally  super- 
intended and  made  ready  for  himself.  The  courtly 
old  name  still  lives  in  New  Orleans,  though  divested 
for  the  sake  of  simplicity  of  its  aristocratic  trappings, 


SONIAT  DU  FOSSAT  235 

and  become  only  Soniat.  So,  in  truth,  are  its  bearers 
in  simple  worth  fulfilling  their  duties,  in  their  several 
stations  among  the  rank  and  file  of  good  citizens. 

It  was  with  no  surprise,  rather  with  an  expression 
of  fulfilled  expectation,  that  in  his  native  city,  the 
following  item  in  a  local  newspaper  was  read  in  the 
closing  year  of  the  World  War: 

"Charles  T.  Soniat  was  one  of  the  eight  thousand  United  States 
marines  who  distinguished  themselves  at  Chateau-Thierry  and 
fought  at  Belleau  "Wood.  In  command  of  one  of  the  famous  columns 
that  marched  through  the  retreating  Poilus,  behind  Chdteau-Thierry, 
Soniat  was  directed  to  hold  the  Boches  as  long  as  possible  and  then 

retreat.      'Retreat,    !'    he    exclaimed.       Instead   his   column 

advanced  through  Belleau  Wood  and  beyond.  The  regiment  was 
sent  to  Soissons;  he  fought  one  day  in  its  victorious  finale,  when  he 
was  wounded,  and  was  barely  out  of  the  hospital  when  the  armistice 
came,  and  he  sailed  for  America. 

"The  French  Government  gave  him  the  Croix  de  Guerre,  and  he 
was  promoted  by  his  own  Government.  His  name  is  one  of  four 
stars  (Charles,  Lucien,  Leon,  Guy)  on  the  service  flag  in  the  home  of 
his  mother,  Louise  Marie  Sarpy,  widow  of  Gustave  Soniat." 

Leon  died  in  the  Aisne  region  while  serving  with 
the  signal  corps.  His  body  lies  in  the  fatherland  of 
his  ancestors,  and  it  may  be  said  about  him,  as  about 
many  a  Louisiana  boy  who  gave  his  life  freely  to 
France:  ''Here  he  lies  where  he  longed  to  be.^* 


CHAPTER  XIV 

DE  LA  VERGNE 

T^HE  present  head  of  the  family  in  New  Orleans, 
-*-  Colonel  Hugues  Jules  de  la  Vergne,  a  student  of 
Louisiana  history  and  an  authority  on  its  colonial 
families,  traces  his  line  back  to  the  twelfth  century— 
to  Hughes  and  Renaud  de  la  Vergne,  Lords  of  St. 
Cupery  and  la  Mauriange.*  The  Chateau  de  la 
Vergne  at  St.  Priest,  Ligourne,  some  twenty  miles 
from  Limoges,  is  still  in  the  family,  its  actual  pos- 
sessor being  the  Marquis  de  la  Vergne.  The  record 
in  Louisiana  begins  with  a  Lieutenant  Lavergne  on 
the  list  of  officers  under  Bienville  in  the  Archives  de 
la  Marine,  to  whose  name  is  affixed  the  note,  *'Has 
been  only  a  year  in  the  colony;  has  seen  service. 
Sensible  and  very  energetic." 

Further  along  in  history,  in  1766,  a  Captain  La- 
vergne signs  the  protest  of  officers  and  citizens 
against  Rochemore,  defending  Kerlerec  from  the 
unjust  charges  made  by  the  Intendant  against  him. 
Frangoise  de  la  Vergne,  who  married  the  eldest  son 
of  the  Chevalier  d'Arensbourg,  belongs,  according 
to  our  authority,  to  another  branch  of  the  family. 

To  follow  the  present  line  and  the  documents  in 
the  family :  Pierre  de  la  Vergne,  Count  and  Chevalier 
of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  a  native  of  Brive  la  Gaillard, 
Province   of   Limousin,    France,   married   in   New 

*  Taken  from  personal  notes  furnished  the  author  by  Colonel 
Hugues  Jules  de  la  Vergne,  New  Orleans. 

236 


DE  LA  VERGNE  237 

Orleans,  1789,  Marie  Elizabeth  (or  Isabelle)  du 
Vergier  Mari6,  widow  of  Joseph  Fides,  Lieutenant 
and  ex-Commander  ''del  Esquadron  de  Caballeria 
de  Mexico.'^  She  was  the  daughter  of  Guillaume 
du  Vergier  Mari6  and  Rose  Busson  de  la  Marini^re 
of  New  Orleans. 

But  one  son  was  born  of  this  union;  Hughes 
(1789),  who  married,  in  1813,  Marie  Adele  de  Vil- 
lere,  the  daughter  of  the  first  Creole  Governor  of 
Louisiana  and  granddaughter  of  the  illustrious 
patriot  who  was  killed  by  the  Spaniards.  He  had 
the  honor  of  serving  on  the  staff  of  General  Andrew 
Jackson  and  of  fighting  in  the  Battle  of  New  Orleans. 
He  served  also  on  the  staff  of  Governor  Robertson, 
the  successor  of  Governor  Viller^. 

Although  a  member  of  the  Bar  and  a  Notary- 
Public,  he  consented  to  fill  the  place  of  President  of 
the  Bank  of  ''The  Consolidated  Association  of  the 
Planters  of  Louisiana,''  one  of  the  numerous  insti- 
tutions organized  when  wealth,  like  a  mythological 
stream,  was  flowing  through  the  State,  when  money, 
accumulating  like  the  rising  currents  of  the  Missis- 
sippi, threatened  a  golden  overflow  in  New  Orleans. 
Instead  of  which,  however,  the  usual  result  followed 
a  sudden  fall  after  a  sudden  rise  in  values  with  the 
collapse  of  levees  and  crevasses  of  banks.  Fourteen 
of  the  new  institutions  suspended  payment.  The 
Consolidated  Association  of  Planters,  notwithstand- 
ing its  bulwark  of  a  name,  went  down  with  the  rest, 
but  more  tragically.  Its  President,  proud,  haughty, 
and  a  fanatic  on  the  subject  of  personal  honor,  could 
not  brook  what  he  considered,  foolish  as  it  sounds 
to-day,  an  imputation  upon  it.  Winding  up  the 
affairs  of  his  bank,  he  crossed  the  river  and  made  his 


238  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

way  to  the  du  Vergier  plantation,  where  he  sought 
the  family  cemetery.  He  was  found  on  his  mother's 
grave,  pierced  through  the  heart  ^dth  a  sword. 

His  only  son,  Jules,  born  in  1818,  became  a  lawyer, 
and  served  also  as  Colonel  on  the  staff  of  Gover- 
nor Moore,  and  afterwards  of  Governor  Allen,  during 
the  Civil  War.  He  married  Marie  Emma  Josephine 
Bermudez,  the  daughter  of  Judge  Joaquin  Bermudez 
and  the  widow  of  Meloncy  Soniat.  The  only  child 
of  her  second  marriage  is  the  present  bearer  of  the 
name  and  title :  Colonel  Hugues  Jules  de  la  Vergne, 
a  lawyer  like  his  father  and  grandfather  and  an 
officer  on  the  staff  of  the  Governor  of  Louisiana. 
He  was  born  in  1867.  His  biography,  therefore,  while 
not  yet  history,  rests  upon  the  pleasant  foundation  of 
social  reminiscence  and  estimation.  It  may,  how- 
ever, be  permitted  to  state  that  he  is  a  helpful  mem- 
ber of  the  Louisiana  Historical  Society — a  student 
of  historical  records  and  a  writer  of  note.  He  mar- 
ried Marie  Louise  Schmidt,  daughter  of  the  eminent 
jurist,  the  late  Charles  Edouard  Schmidt. 


CHAPTER  XV 
DE  BORE 

ETIENNE  DE  BORE'S  family,  as  we  learn  from 
notes  left  by  his  grandson,  Charles  Gayarr^, 
belonged  to  the  old  Norman  nobility.  It  ascends  to 
Michel  de  Bor6  who,  under  Louis  XIII,  was  a 
''conseiller  de  roi'^  and  Director  of  Posts  and 
Couriers  between  Paris  and  Orleans.  Robert  de 
Bore,  his  son,  was  also  a  Councillor  in  1652  and  was 
attached  to  the  royal  household. 

Robert  Louis  de  Bor6  filled  the  same  offices  as  his 
father.  He  married,  in  1654,  EUzabeth  Hotman. 
Their  grandson,  the  first  of  the  name  in  Louisiana, 
married  in  Kaskaskia,  Illinois,  Celeste  Th^r^se 
Carriere  of  that  place.  Their  son,  Jean  Etienne  de 
Bor^,  our  de  Bore,  as  New  Orleans  takes  pride  in 
caUing  him,  was  born  in  Kaskaskia  in  1740.  He  was 
educated  in  France  and,  as  soon  as  age  permitted, 
entered  the  Mousquetaires  du  Roi  or  ''Mousque- 
taires  Noirs,"  the  household  troops  of  the  King,  a 
corps  that  none  but  a  noble  could  enter :  its  privates 
holding  the  rank  of  captains,  and  captains  the  rank  of 
Ueutenant-generals  in  the  regular  army. 

After  ten  years  of  service  at  court,  de  Bor6  was 
transferred  to  the  command  of  a  company  of  cavalry, 
but  having  married  Marguerite  Marie,  daughter  of 
des  Trehans  des  Tours,  a  representative  of  an  old 
French  family  who  for  many  years  had  been  Royal 
Treasurer  in  Louisiana,  he  resigned  his  position  in 

239 


240  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

the  army  in  1772  and  came  to  Louisiana,  where  his 
wife  possessed  much  property. 

It  may  be  remembered  that  des  Trehans  was 
sent  back  to  France  by  Kerlerec  as  '^too  rich  and 
dangerous ;''  in  reaUty,  because  the  Treasurer  was  a 
friend  of  Rochemore  the  Intendant,  an  unscrupulous 
enemy  of  Kerlerec  and  the  leader  of  a  cabal  against 
him. 

D'Estrehan  had  two  other  daughters:  one  married 
Pierre  Philippe  de  Mandeville  de  Marigny;  the  other 
Favre  d'Aunoy;  his  son  married  a  Maxent,  the 
beautiful  lady  who  subsequently  became  the  wife  of 
Bernardo  de  Galvez.  Besides  her  beauty  there  is 
but  one  fact  remembered  about  her;  that  the 
daughter  born  to  her  and  Galvez  was  named  Guada- 
loupe  and  that  the  city  for  which  she  was  named 
stood  godmother  to  her  and  gave  her  a  magnificent 
present  in  solid  silver — one  worthy  of  so  wealthy  a 
sponsor  and  the  bearer  of  her  name.  But  Guada- 
loupe  died  in  infancy  and  never  enjoyed  her  god- 
mother's wealth  or  her  distinction. 

We  must  not  omit  to  mention  a  souvenir  of  him 
that  Gayarre  always  recalled  with  peculiar  pleasure. 
De  Bore  had  previously  visited  Louisiana  on  a  leave 
granted  by  the  Count  Rochechouart  Montboissier, 
the  Minister  of  War,  upon  which  occasion  he  had 
brought  back  from  America  some  feathers  which  he 
presented  to  the  Countess  de  Montboissier,  the 
wife  of  the  Minister.  When  he  was  ready  to  embark 
for  Louisiana  the  second  time,  he  received  the 
following  note  from  the  Countess  addressed  to  him 
as  ^'Mousquetaire  Noir  a  la  Rochelle,  Hotel  du 
Bien  Nourri.  (Happy  name  for  a  hotel!)  The  old 
paper  is  worn  and  falling  into  pieces  and  the  ink  is 


F5£^ 


I 


!':     I 


DE  B0R6  243 

faded,  but  the  pleasant  words  stand  out  upon  it 
still  clear  and  distinct : 

Paris,  9th  January,  1772. 

"It  is  with  great  pleasure,  Sir,  that)  I  have  undertaken  to  inform 
you  that  the  commission  of  Captain  which  you  seemed  so  much  to 
desire  has  been  granted  you  'par  le  dernier  travail  de  M.  de  Mont- 
boissicr.*  When  the  brevet  is  ready  he  will  forward  it  to  you.  He 
is  very  glad  to  have  been  able  to  render  you  this  service.  We  both 
wish  you  a  happy  voyage  and  a  speedy  return  to  us  after  having 
arranged  your  affairs  in  that  country  sufficiently  to  your  satisfac- 
tion. If  it  should  be  possible  for  you  to  send  me  a  hundred  feathers 
like  those  with  which  you  had  the  kindness  to  favor  me,  my  obHga- 
tion  to  you  would  be  very  great.  The  trimming  of  my  dress  is 
finished;  it  is  superb;  and  as  I  am  afraid  of  losing  some  of  the 
feathers,  I  should  be  happy  to  be  able  to  replace  them.  I  beg  to 
be  excused  for  thus  taxing  too  much  your  gallantry  and  generosity, 
for  you  have  given  me  such  a  large  quantity  of  the  feathers  that  it 
looked  as  if  I  would  need  no  more.  I  return  to  you  my  thanks 
in  advance,  and  I  entreat  you  to  be  convinced  of  the  very  great 
sincerity  of  the  sentiments  with  which  I  have  the  honor  to  be,  Sir. 

"Your  very  humble  and  very  obedient  servant, 

"ROUCHECHOUART  DE  MONTBOISSIER. 

"P.S. — M.  de  Montboissier  requests  me  to  address  to  you  a 
thousand  compliments  on  his  behalf." 

The  colony  having  by  the  time  that  de  Bor6 
arrived  in  New  Orleans  become  quieted  in  the  rule 
of  the  Spanish  Government,  he  bought  the  plantation 
of  the  patriot  Masan,  who  had  been  exiled  and  sen- 
tenced to  imprisonment  for  life  in  Morro  Castle. 
It  w^as  situated  about  six  miles  above  New  Orleans, 
measuring  from  the  Cathedral,  and  was  on  the  same 
bank  of  the  river.  The  plantation  above  him  was 
owned  by  Pierre  Foucher,  who  became  his  son-in- 
law;  a  portion  of  it  is  now  Audubon  Park.  The 
plantation  above  Foucher's  had  belonged  to  La- 
freniere,  the  great  Louisiana  patriot.    His  daughter, 


244  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

the  widow  of  Noyan  de  Bienville,  who  was  executed 
at  the  same  time  as  her  father,  married  Le  Breton 
who,  like  de  Bore,  had  been  a  Mousquetaire  in  the 
household  troops  of  the  King  of  France.  He  thus 
became  the  proprietor  of  the  lafreniere  place  and 
his  son  eventually  married  a  daughter  of  deBor^.* 

On  Le  Breton's  death,  he  was  assassinated  by  a 
petted  slave  (to  follow  the  Gayarre's  narrative),  the 
plantation  passed  into  the  hands  of  Macarty  and 
Lafreniere's  great-grandsons,  Des  Chappelles  Le 
Breton  and  his  brother,  Jean  Baptiste  Le  Breton, 
who  lived  with  their  grandfather  de  Bore,  serving  on 
the  managerial  staff  of  the  plantation.  The  other 
two  managers  of  the  plantation  had  also  their  his- 
torical significance.  One  was  the  nephew  of  General 
Klein  d'Alberg,  of  Napoleon's  army,  afterwards  a 
peer  of  France.  Gayarre  used  to  meet  his  son  in  Paris 
many  years  afterwards  in  the  salon  of  the  Baronne 
de  Pontalba.  The  other  employee,  very  small  in 
stature,  ' 'almost  feminine  in  manner  and  appear- 
ance; the  most  modest,  the  most  tender-hearted  of 
men,''  was  the  son  of  General  Duphot  of  the  French 
Embassy,  who,  under  the  First  RepubHc,  was 
assassinated  in  a  riot  in  Rome  by  the  partisans  of 
the  Pope. 

The  ex-mousquetaire  gave  his  plantation  a  mihtary 
appearance  and  ruled  it  with  military  discipline. 
His  staff  made  their  report  to  him  every  night  and 
received  their  orders  for  the  next  day's  work.  Every 
morning  at  dawn  a  great  bell  assembled  the  whole 
force  of  laborers  in  front  of  the  master's  house,  where 
they  knelt  and  said  a  prayer  before  being  detailed 

*  "A  Louisiana  Plantation  of  the  Old  Regime." — Harper's  Maga- 
zine, March,  1887. 


DE  BOR&  245 

to  work — a  member  of  the  family  always  presiding 
during  the  prayer  with  head  uncovered. 

"I  vividly  remember,"  writes  the  historian  Gayarrd,  seventy 
years  afterward,  "how  I  felt  when,  about  eight  years  old,  I  was 
called  upon  for  the  first  time  to  preside  over  the  prayer  of  this 
dark  assemblage." 

When  the  day's  work  was  over,  the  same  ceremony 
dismissed  the  negroes  to  their  rest.  Before  retiring 
at  night  and  on  meeting  in  the  morning,  the  members 
of  the  family  respectfully  saluted  Monsieur  de  Bore. 
'Tor  a  kiss  on  my  forehead  I  returned  one  on  his 
hand  as  if  he  were  a  monarch,  and  the  same  feeling 
of  reverence  was  shown  by  all  who  approached 
him,'^  writes  the  same  historian. 

From  his  service  at  court,  de  Bore  derived  the 
authority  to  cite  in  manners,  customs  and  pro- 
nunciation, ''la  cour  de  Versailles" — the  standard 
that  reigned  tyrannously  supreme  on  his  plantation. 
One  of  the  anecdotes  that  Gayarre  loved  to  quote 
(which  is  quoted  here  merely  to  preserve  a  personal 
memory)  was  that  when  a  very  small  child,  riding 
a  stick-horse  on  the  gallery  of  his  home,  he  dropped 
or  lost  his  whip  and  so  began  to  cry  out,  "J'ai  ferdu 
mon  fouet,^^  pronouncing  it  "foi.^^  Some  young 
ladies  and  gentlemen  sitting  on  the  gallery  gaily 
took  up  his  cry  to  tease  him,  adding,  ''he  called 
fouetj  joiy  M.  de  Bore,  hearing  the  teasing,  came 
out  upon  the  gallery  to  defend  his  little  favorite  and, 
turning  to  the  gay  group,  said:  "Sachez,  Mesdames 
et  Messieurs,  qu'a  la  cour  de  Versailles  on  dit  foi 
et  non  foueV^  (Know,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  that  at 
the  court  of  Versailles  they  ssiy  foi  and  not  fouetJ^ 

De  Bore's  historical  benefaction  to  Louisiana  was 
that  of  establishing  the  making  of  sugar  on  a  per- 


246  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

manent  and  sure  basis  in  1795.  Indigo  had  been  the 
principal  crop  of  the  colony  and  all  the  plantations 
had  been  given  over  to  its  culture,  but  a  worm  that 
attacked  the  plant  and  destroyed  it  through  several 
successive  years  was  reducing  to  poverty  and  to  the 
utmost  despair  the  whole  population.  Etienne  de 
Bot6  determined  to  make  a  bold  experiment  to  save 
himself  and  his  fellow  citizens  by  turning  his  indigo 
into  a  sugar  plantation.  Hitherto,  many  attempts 
had  been  made  to  make  sugar  in  Louisiana.  As 
has  been  related  the  Jesuits  had,  in  1751,  introduced 
the  culture  of  sugar  cane  into  Louisiana  from  their 
plantations  in  the  Islands,  and  the  planters  who  had 
followed  their  agricultural  experiment  had  endeav- 
ored to  make  sugar  from  it.  But,  season  after 
season,  they  had  succeeded  only  in  making  syrup 
or,  at  best,  a  soft  sugar  that  melted  away  in 
transportation. 

De  Bor6  resolved  to  remake  the  experiment  to 
manufacture  sugar  in  Louisiana  and  prepared  to  go 
into  all  the  expense  and  incur  all  the  obligations 
necessary  for  so  costly  an  undertaking.  His  wife 
warned  him  that  her  father  had  in  former  years 
vainly  made  a  similar  attempt;  she  represented  to 
her  husband  that  he  was  hazarding  on  the  cast  of  a 
die  all  that  remained  to  them  of  their  means  of 
existence  and  that  if  he  failed,  as  was  probable,  he 
would  reduce  his  family  to  hopeless  poverty.  She 
reminded  him  that  he  was  over  fifty,  of  an  age  when 
fate  was  not  to  be  tempted  by  doubtful  speculations, 
as  he  could  not  reasonably  entertain  the  hope  of  a 
sufficiently  long  life  to  rebuild  his  fortune  were  it 

Note.  "A  Louisiana  Sugar  Plantation  under  the  Old  E^gime,' 
Charles  Gayarr^. — Harper's  Magazine,  March,  1887. 


DE  BORS  247 

once  completely  shattered;  and  that  he  would  not 
only  expose  himself  to  ruin  but  also  to  a  risk  much 
more  to  be  dreaded — that  of  falling  into  the  grasp 
of  creditors. 

Friends  and  relatives  joined  their  remonstrances 
to  his  w  ife's,  but  could  not  shake  the  strong  resolve 
of  his  energetic  mind.  He  had  fully  matured  his 
plans  and  was  determined  to  sink  or  swim  with  it. 
Purchasing  a  quantity  of  cane  for  seed  from  two 
Spaniards,  named  Mendez  and  Solis,  who  cul- 
tivated it  only  for  sale  as  a  dainty  or  for  the  making 
of  syrup,  he  began  to  plant  in  1794.  His  venture 
excited  the  keenest  interest  and  many  visited  him 
during  the  year  to  witness  his  preparations. 

Gloomy  predictions  had  been  set  afloat  about  him 
and  on  the  day  when  the  grinding  of  the  cane  was  to 
begin  a  large  number  of  friends  and  other  citizens 
gathered  about  the  sugar-house  to  be  present  at  the 
failure  or  success  of  the  experiment.  Would  the 
syrup  granulate?  Would  it  be  converted  into  sugar? 
The  crowd  awaited  with  eager  impatience  the 
moment  when  the  sugar  boiler  would  be  able  to 
answer  the  question.  The  moment  came;  the 
stillness  of  death  spread  over  them;  each  one  was 
holding  his  breath  feeling  that  ruin  or  prosperity 
was  upon  all.  Suddenly  the  sugar  boiler  cried  out 
triumphantly:  *  It  granulates!" 

Inside  and  outside  the  building  one  could  hear  the 
wonderful  tidings  flying  from  mouth  to  mouth  and 
dying  in  the  distance.  Each  one  of  the  bystanders 
pressed  forward  to  make  sure  of  the  fact  on  the 
evidence  of  his  own  eyes  and,  when  it  could  no  longer 
be  doubted,  there  came  a  shout  of  joy  and  all  flocked 
around  de  Bor6,  overwhelming  him  with  congratula- 


248  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

tiorxs  and  embracing  the  man  whom  they  called 
their  saviour — the  saviour  of  Louisiana! 

In  a  private  gossipy  letter  to  Thomas  Jefferson, 
written  in  1806,  Governor  Claiborne  gives  the  fol- 
lowing additional  account  of  this  episode  which  he 
heard  from  Colonel  Macarty  during  a  visit  to  his 
plantation: 

"The  Colonel  esteemed  the  cane  the  only  sure  and  lucrative  crop 
which  could  be  cultivated  in  the  lower  part  of  this  territory.  For- 
merly, indigo  was  the  staple  commodity,  but  for  several  years  in  suc- 
cession the  crops  were  diminished  and  on  many  farms  entirely 
destroyed.  The  planters  changed  their  seed  and  procured  a  species 
from  Campeachy;  for  the  first  year  this  quality  of  indigo  prospered, 
but  was  ultimately  attacked  by  the  common  enemy.  This  destroyer 
was  a  worm  called  by  the  inhabitants  'vers  luisants,'  a  species  of  the 
"chenille,"  which  commenced  its  ravages  in  the  year  1790.  The  pros- 
pects of  the  farmer  w^ere  often  blighted  in  a  night.  .  .  .  Thus  it 
was  that  indigo  was  finally  abandoned  and  that  the  planters  resorted 
to  a  more  certain  culture.  Some  raised  corn,  others  cotton;  but 
M.  de  Bore  in  the  year  ninety-six,  turned  his  attention  to  sugar. 
The  cane  had  previously  been  brought  from  Havana  and  had  orna- 
mented the  gardens  of  Louisianians;  but  M.  de  Bore  has  the  credit 
of  being  the  first  to  introduce  it  in  his  fields.  He  succeeded  beyond 
his  expectations  and  found  for  his  sugars  an  immediate  and  lucrative 
market. 

"Other  planters  followed  the  example  of  M.  de  Bor6,  and  the  cane 
will  doubtless  be  very  soon  cultivated  in  every  part  of  this  territory 
where  the  climate  permits.  The  facility  with  which  sugar  planters 
amass  wealth  is  almost  incredible.  .  .  .  It  is  not  uncommon  with 
220  working  hands  to  make  from  ten  to  fourteen  thousand  dollars; 
and  there  are  several  planters  whose  field  negroes  do  not  exceed 
forty  who  make  more  than  twenty  thousand  dollars  a  year.  .  .  . 
The  sugar  planters  raise  a  sufficiency  of  corn  for  their  own  use;  nor 
do  those  citizens  who  reside  near  New  Orleans  neglect  their  gardens. 
I  think  Colonel  Macarty  told  me  that  his  daily  receipts  from  the 
markets  were  equal  to  nine  dollars. 

".  .  .  Yesterday  I  dined  with  M.  Destrehan;  he  is  esteemed 
the  best  sugar  planter  in  the  territory  and  is  perhaps  the  wealthiest; 
his  sugars  bring  him  in  near  thirty  thousand  dollars  per  annum  and 


DE  BORS  249 

his  rents  in  the  city,  six  thousand.  But  he  is  nevertheless  an  econo- 
mist; everything  around  him  has  the  air  of  simphcity;  his  table  is 
good  but  by  no  means  luxuriantly  served.  He  is  much  attached  to 
retirement;  and  the  education  of  his  children  (ten  in  number)  and 
the  improvement  of  his  estate  constituteat  present  his  primary  cares. 
"M.  Dcstrehan  (do  Bor6's  brother-in-law)  is  certainly  a  man  of 
sense,  but  has  strong  prejudices  and  although  they  may  be  founded 
in  error  it  is  not  in  the  power  of  man  to  remove  them.  He  continues 
in  the  opinion  that  Congress  has  not  been  just  to  the  ceded  terri- 
tory; but  is  nevertheless  an  admirer  of  the  American  government." 

In  1796  a  stirring  event  occurred  on  the  planta- 
tion. The  French  General,  Collot,  on  his  way  to 
New  Orleans  from  the  Western  states  and  territories, 
stopped  to  visit  Etienne  de  Bor^.  As  soon  as  this 
was  known  in  the  city,  the  Governor,  Baron  de 
Carondelet,  who  had  received  from  Philadelphia  a 
confidential  communication  informing  him  that 
General  Collot  was  intrusted  by  the  French  Govern- 
ment with  a  secret  mission  against  which  the 
Spanish  authorities  were  to  be  on  their  guard,  sent 
up  an  armed  boat  by  the  river  and  fifty  dragoons 
by  land  to  arrest  him.  The  General  was  put  in  the 
boat  and  taken  dow^n  to  New  Orleans,  w^here  he  was 
imprisoned  in  Fort  St.  Charles  (on  the  spot  where 
stood  the  United  States  Mint).  On  the  next  day 
he  w^as  called  upon  by  the  Spanish  Governor,  who 
offered  him  a  house  in  town  which  he  might  occupy 
on  parole,  with  a  soldier  at  his  door.  The  General 
accepted  the  proposition  and  left  the  fort  in  the 
Governor's  carriage.  Shortly  afterwards,  his  maps 
and  drawings  having  been  taken  away  from  him,  he 
was  put  on  board  one  of  the  King's  galleys  and 
transported  to  the  Balize,  where  he  was  detained  a 
prisoner  in  the  house  of  the  chief  pilot,  Juan  Ron- 
Note.— Official  letter  book  of  W.  C.  Claiborne.    Vol.  Ill,  page  61. 


250  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

qillo,  situated  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  swamp  from 
which  there  was  no  egress  except  by  boat.  He 
remained  there  for  two  months,  when  he  was 
allowed  to  embark  on  board  an  American  brig  for 
Philadelphia. 

Etienne  de  Bor6  was  extremely  indignant  at  the 
arbitrary  arrest  of  his  guest,  and  he  expressed  his 
feelings  loudly  and  without  restraint.  As  he  was 
known  for  his  intense  attachment  to  France  and  her 
interests,  it  is  said  that  the  Baron  thought  seriously 
of  having  him  also  arrested  and  transported  to 
Havana,  but  that  he  was  deterred  by  the  fear  of  the 
commotion  that  would  be  produced  by  inflicting 
so  harsh  a  treatment  on  so  distinguished  a  citizen — 
one  who  by  his  personal  character,  his  rank,  his 
family  connections  and  the  benefit  he  had  lately 
conferred  on  Louisiana  by  the  introduction  of  a  new 
and  valuable  branch  of  industry,  commanded  uni- 
versal sympathy  and  exercised  the  widest  influence. 

What  an  imaginative  child  hears,  he  sees ;  and  the 
historian  in  after  days  could  relate  this  event  as  if 
his  heart  and  not  merely  his  memory  had  been  tinged 
by  it.  In  the  same  way,  he  could  relate  that  truly 
royal  moment  in  the  hospitality  of  his  old  home 
when  the  three  illustrious  visitors,  the  Due  d'Orl^ans, 
the  Comte  de  Beaujolais  and  the  Due  de  Montpen- 
sier  passed  some  days  there.  As  the  old  mousqu^taire 
repeated  to  his  grandson : 

"Little  did  I  think  when  in  the  household  troops  of  Louis  XV 
that  the  day  would  come  when  three  princes  of  the  blood  would  be 
my  guests  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi." 

When  the  colony  was  transferred  from  Spain  to 
France,  de  Bor6  was  appointed  Mayor  of  the  city  of 


OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  251 

New  Orleans  for  reasons  that  Laussat  explains  in  his 
confidential   despatch: 

"I  thought  also  of  securing  without  loss  of  time  an  imposing  sup- 
port in  the  civil  department  of  the  government  and  I  selected  for 
Mayor  of  the  city,  M.  Etienne  de  Bor6,  a  native  of  Louisiana  of  a 
distinguished  family,  formerly  mousqu6taire  in  France,  one  of  the 
largest  and  most  skillful  planters  of  the  province;  a  gentleman  re- 
nowned for  his  patriotism  and  for  a  character  of  undeviating  inde- 
pendence. I  made  a  powerful  appeal  to  him  in  the  name  of  his 
country  whose  interests  required  his  services  and  I  had  the  satisfac- 
tion to  win  him  over.  After  M.  de  Bore,  and  through  his  influence, 
I  secured  the  services  of  some  of  the  most  distinguished  among  the 
colonists." 

De  Bor6  continued  to  act  as  Mayor  during  the 
initial  years  of  the  American  Domination  and 
faithfully  endeavored  to  bring  into  the  management 
of  the  city  the  same  order  that  reigned  on  his 
plantation.  He  ably  seconded  Governor  Claiborne 
in  his  efforts  to  prevent  an  outbreak  between  the 
turbulent  Americans  and  the  excitable  Creoles 
whenever  they  met — particularly  in  the  exciting 
scenes  that  spoiled  the  pleasure  of  the  public  balls 
when  the  Americans  would  call  out  for  their  favorite 
dances,  the  Creoles  for  theirs;  and  such  an  uproar 
would  ensue  as  to  frighten  the  ladies  and  drive  them 
away,  while  the  gentlemen  would  try  to  enforce 
their  desires  by  their  swords  or  even  fists.  De  Bor6 
regulated  this  disorder  by  drawing  up  a  programme 
with  American  and  French  dances,  alternating  in 
regular  succession;  and  stationing  gendarmes  to 
enforce  it. 

Bernard  Marigny  describes  such  a  scene  in  a  ball 
given  in  1804  in  the  ''Salle  rue  Conde.''  The  Anglo- 
Saxons,  who  loved  to  amuse  themselves,  but  in  a 
different  manner  from  the  people  of  French  origin, 


252  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

asserted  that  as  Louisiana  had  been  bought  by  the 
United  States  the  amusements  should  be  conducted 
according  to  the  American  taste,  that  the  '^rill'^ 
(reel)  should  replace  the  waltz,  and  the  jig  the  cotil- 
lion. The  Creoles,  informed  of  these  ridiculous  pre- 
tensions, attended  the  ball,  as  well  as  the  French,  who 
were  naturalized  Americans,  by  the  fact  of  the  ces- 
sion of  Louisiana  to  the  United  States.  An  infernal 
row  took  place;  the  men  were  armed.  That  evening 
was  to  decide  whether  the  reel  or  the  waltz  was  to 
triumph.  In  the  midst  of  so  much  noise  and  con- 
fusion which  frightened  the  beau  sexe,  who  were  all 
on  the  point  of  retiring  from  the  room,  a  young  lady 
jumped  on  a  chair.  She  belonged  to  a  family  in  which 
wit  was  and  is  a  heredity.  Her  face  was  animated  by 
excitement. 

''Sirs,"  she  said  to  the  furious  Americans,  ''for 
thirty  years  we  were  Spaniards,  and  the  Spaniards 
never  forced  us  to  dance  the  fandango.  We  wish  to 
dance  neither  the  reel  nor  the  jig." 

The  astonished  Americans  asked  all  over  the  room, 
''What  did  she  say?"  General  Wilkinson,  who  was 
present  and  exerting  himself  to  induce  calm,  stood 
on  a  chair  and  translated  what  the  beautiful  Creole 
had  said  and  ordered  the  musicians  to  play  a  waltz 
and  to  the  great  astonishment  of  every  one  began  to 
waltz  himself.  Crying  "Hurrah!  Hurrah!"  The 
Anglo-Saxons,  vanquished  by  Beauty,  began  also 
to  dance. 

Claiborne,  in  a  letter  of  May  21st,  1804  acknow- 

NoTE. — From  "Reflexions  sur  la  campagne  du  General  Jackson 
en  Louisiana  en  1814  ct  1815,"  by  Bernard  Marigny.  New  Orleans, 
1848. 


DE  B0R6  253 

ledges  receipt  of  a  letter  from  de  Bor6  announcing 
his  wish  to  resign  the  mayoralty. 

"I  cannot,"  writes  the  Governor,  "but  regret  the  circumstances 
which  have  induced  your  rchnquishment  of  an  office  the  duties  of 
which  have  been  discharged  with  so  much  credit  to  yourself  and 
advantage  to  the  city." 

When  the  territorial  government  which  had  been 
decreed  by  Act  of  Congress  went  into  operation  in 
Louisiana,  de  Bore  was  appointed  a  member  of  the 
Legislative  Council  by  the  President.  He  had, 
however,  been  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  opposition 
against  the  establishment  of  a  territorial  govern- 
ment, when  full  statehood  in  the  Union  had  been 
stipulated  in  the  cession  by  Napoleon;  and  as  he  had 
been  most  zealous  in  stimulating  his  fellow  citizens 
to  remonstrate  against  the  form  of  government 
imposed  upon  them,  he  could  not  aid  in  establishing 
it  and,  therefore,  declined  the  proffered  seat  in  the 
Legislative  Council.  This  refusal,  with  that  of  the 
other  gentleman  named  by  the  President,  had  a 
considerable  influence  on  other  members,  who  held 
back  in  dubious  suspense;  and  two  months  nearly 
elapsed  before  a  Council  could  be  formed,  notwith- 
standing the  incessant  efforts  of  Claiborne  to  soothe 
and  conciliate  the  refractory  tempers  that  he  had  to 
deal  with.. 

The  portrait  of  the  ex-mousquetaire  and  planter 
bears  out  the  character  given  by  his  grandson.  It 
represents  a  man  of  sixty  of  quiet  dignity  and  simple 
manners,  looking  at  one  with  piercing,  shrewd,  yet 
kindly  eyes,  and  with  a  pleasant  paternal  smile — 
in  short,  a  man  of  business  abiHty  and  a  good 
disciplinarian,  though  of  benevolent  disposition. 


254  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

His  house  was  furnished  in  the  style  of  plain 
simphcity  that  prevailed  among  the  planters  of  his 
day,  but  the  table  and  wines  went  to  the  other 
extreme.  In  the  memory  of  Gayarr6,  they  were,  as 
he  wrote,  ^'superb,'^  and  the  hospitahty  they  graced 
were  worthy  of  them.  Every  Sunday  there  came 
regularly  to  dinner  a  score  or  two  of  guests  from 
New  Orleans.  Among  them  some  Knights  of  St. 
Louis,  wearing  their  decorations,  struck  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  future  historian ;  among  them  the  Hazares, 
two  brothers  who  lived  near  the  Bayou  St.  Jean  on 
the  Gentilly  Road.  (Their  tombs  may  be  seen  to-day 
in  the  old  St.  Louis  Cemetery.) 

"There  was  something,"  says  Gayarre,  ''in  all  those  waifs  of 
another  age,  in  their  appearance,  in  their  dress,  in  their  physiognomy, 
in  their  manners,  in  their  peculiarities  of  conversation  and  language, 
in  their  bows  and  greetings,  in  their  accent  and  the  modulation  of  the 
voice,  that  produced  a  most  vivid  impression.  These  men  of  the  old 
regime  seemed  to  entertain  more  esteem  and  respect  for  each  other 
than  we  do  now  for  our  contemporaries.  As  I  grew  in  years  I  be- 
came more  deeply  impressed  with  the  faith  which  men  of  that  epoch 
reposed  in  one  another." 

And  again: 

"There  is  not  a  vestige,  not  a  wreck's  fragment  of  the  de  Bor^ 
plantation  left,"  writes  Gayarre  at  eighty  with  pathos,  "save  myself, 
standing  alone,  forgotten  but  trying  in  vain  to  forget." 

M.  de  Bor6  died  when  seventy-eight  years  of  age; 
at  his  very  last  moments  he  summoned  his  grandson 
to  his  presence.  Putting  his  hands  on  his  head,  he 
blessed  him  and  gave  him  his  parting  instructions 
and  recommendations  with  a  firm  voice: 

"Let  no  temptation  ever  betray  you  out  of  the  path  of  honor  and 
virtue.  Keep  your  conscience  always  free  from  self-reproach,  so 
that  your  death  may  be  as  calm  as  mine.     Trusting  in  the  mercy  of 


DE  BOR^  255 

God,  I  fear  not  to  appear  before  His  tribunal  where  I  hope  not  to 
grieve  for  you  when  in  due  time  we  are  to  meet  again  and  when  you 
shall  render  your  accounts  to  Him." 

According  to  his  directions  his  funeral  and  his 
tomb  were  to  be  of  the  plainest  kind,  and  the  thou- 
sand dollars  that  might  have  been  spent  upon  them 
given  to  the  Charity  Hospital. 

He  died  February  2nd,  1829.  On  a  little  side 
path  of  the  old  St.  Louis  Cemetery  may  be  seen  his 
last  resting  place.  The  tomb,  as  he  requested,  is  of 
the  plainest  kind,  with  no  inscription  upon  it  but 
his  name  and  dates.  In  the  great  hall  of  the  Charity 
Hospital,  a  tablet  bears  the  record  of  the  donation  of 
a  thousand  dollars  given  by  his  family. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
GAYARRfi 

Non  I'avenir  n'est  a  personne 

Sire!    Tavenir  est  a  Dieu! 
Qui  sait  si  I'onde  qui  tressaille, 

Si  le  cri  des  gouffres  amers, 
Si  la  trombe  aux  ardentes  serres 

Si  les  Eclairs  et  les  tonnerres, 

Seigneur!    ne  sont  pas  necessaires 
A  la  perle  que  font  les  mers! 

— Victor  Hugo. 

GAYARRfi  is  the  first  fruit  of  the  grafting  of 
the  stock  of  Spain  upon  the  French  stock 
growing  in  Louisiana.  The  grafting  came  about  in 
this  wise.  On  March  5th,  1766,  as  the  standard 
bearer  of  the  name  himself  relates,  the  long  expected 
and  much  dreaded  Ulloa  arrived  in  New  Orleans  to 
take  possession  of  the  colony  of  Louisiana  for  Spain. 
He  landed  with  two  companies  of  infantry  and  was 
accompanied  by  three  joint  commissioners:  Loyola, 
Commissary  of  War;  Gayarre,  Contador  or  Comp- 
troller; and  Navarro,  Treasurer. 

While  it  is  conceded  by  all  historians  that  Ulloa 
was  totally  lacking  in  the  qualities  needed  for  the 
proper  performance  of  his  high  office,  it  is  as  generally 
recognized  that  no  better  men  than  the  three  com- 
missioners could  have  been  named  for  the  duties 
entrusted  to  them — duties  which  even  the  irate 
Creoles  handsomely  avowed  they  accomphshed,  not 
only  as  loyal  servants  of  the  King,  but  also  as  Spanish 

256 


GAYARR^!  257 

gentlemen  of  the  highest  rank.  They,  therefore, 
were  never  included  in  the  rigid  ostracism  practised 
against  Ulloa,  but  on  the  contrary,  from  the  first 
were  received  with  the  respect  due  them  and 
accorded  the  generous  hospitality  of  the  citizens. 

Don  Juan  Joseph  de  Loyola  belonged  to  the  famous 
family  of  Guiposcoa,  which  produced  the  great 
founder  of  the  Jesuits;  and  he  showed  the  elegance 
of  manner,  the  high  breeding  and  the  knightly 
courage  that  distinguished  his  celebrated  kinsman, 
Ignatius,  in  addition  to  his  poetical  mind,  luxuriant 
imagination  and  rehgious  enthusiasm.  Don  Martin 
Navarro,  on  the  contrary,  was  the  son  of  a  poor 
tavern  keeper  who  had  risen  by  dint  of  industry, 
perseverance  and  address.  Shrewd,  active  and 
honest,  he  deserved  the  confidence  he  gained,  and 
being,  withal,  a  boon  companion  and  skillful  in  the 
ways  of  the  world,  he  had  also  the  genial  qualities 
that  make  smooth  and  easy  the  path  to  social  success. 

Don  Estevan  Gayarre,  the  great-grandfather  of 
Louisiana's  historian,  was  the  younger  son  of  a 
patrician  house  of  the  Kingdom  of  Navarre.  He 
had  enlisted  at  the  age  of  nineteen  in  the  army  of 
Spain  and  he  served  in  it  with  distinction  for  twenty- 
four  years.  His  health  being  impaired  from  a  wound 
received  in  the  war  with  Italy,  he  was  in  1755 
permitted  to  retire,  and  was  a  year  later  appointed 
Contador  for  the  army  and  the  Kingdom  of  Gallicia. 
He  was  finally  chosen  for  the  place  of  Contador  in 
the  newly  acquired  Province  of  Louisiana. 

He  is  pictured  by  his  great-grandson  as  a  man 
excelling  in  all  the  gentle  qualities  of  an  affectionate 
nature,  besides  possessing  a  mind  far  above  the 
ordinary.    He  showed,  especially,  the  robust  traits 


258  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

of  character  that  distinguished  the  hardy  race  of 
mountaineers  among  whom  he  was  raised  in  the 
valley  of  Roncal,  in  Navarre,  surrounded  by  the 
impressive  scenery  of  the  Pyrenees.  His  young 
son,  Juan  Antonio,  joined  him  in  New  Orleans. 

The  three  courtly  Spaniards,  during  the  uneasy 
month     that     followed     UUoa's     arrival,     when 
Lafr^niere's  fiery  eloquence  was  kindhng  sedition 
in  the  populace,  increased  their  circle  of  friends., 
and  found  more  and  more  doors  opened  to  them,  al-  i 
though   they   were   in   constant   attendance   upom! 
their  obnoxious  commander.  j 

The  tradition  that  accounts  for  the  pleasant  social  I 
bridging  of  the  ugly  chasm  of  hatred  contains  twojj 
pretty  versions.     According  to  one,   the  Spanish  i| 
gentlemen  themselves  were  too  refined  and  polished  li 
not  to  appreciate  the  charm  of  the  place  and  of  the;,' 
society  into  which  they  had  been  thrust  so  rudely, 
so  that  they  showed  their  feelings  of  admiration  and 
sympathy  for  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  whom  they 
met.    The  other  version  states  that  the  ladies  andL 
gentlemen  of  New  Orleans'  society  who  met  thej! 
Spanish  officials  were  themselves  too  sensitive  to»' 
high-born    manners    and    the    charm    of    graceful  I' 
courtesy  to  resist  their  own  hospitable  desires  and  I 
make  known  the  pleasures  of  their  table  and  saloni 
to  the  strangers.    Thus  was  brought  about,  despite 
political  opposition,  the  conditions  necessary  for  the 
sowing  of  Spanish  seed  in  French  soil.     It  is  on 
record,  however,  that  although  subjected  to  many, 
attempts  to  elicit  information  from  them  as  to  the?' 
feelings  and  plans  of  their  commander,  the  Spanish) 
gentlemen  could   always  manage  to  answer  in   ai 
manner  that  silenced  or  parried  inquiry  without  loss:, 
of  cordiahty. 


GAYARR^  259 

The  enigmatic  Ulloa,  after  an  absence  of  seven 
months  at  the  Balize,  returned  in  March,  bringing 
with  him  in  triumph  his  beautiful  young  bride,  the 
Marquise  d'Abrado,  celebrated  as  one  of  the  richest 
women  of  Peru.  They  opened  their  house  and  gave 
receptions  on  three  evenings  of  the  week.  The 
Spanish  officers  attended  as  a  matter  of  course ;  also 
the  three  commissioners  and  a  sprinkling  of  French 
officers,  with  the  citizens  who  had  been  put  on  the 
Council  instituted  by  Ulloa  to  supply  the  place  of 
the  discarded  French  Su  erior  Council:  de  Grand 
Pr^,  de  Grand  Maison,  -"\llivier  de  Vezin,  de  la 
Chaise  (the  brother-in-la\^  ^  of  Viller6  and  kinsman 
of  Lafr^niere),  Reggio,  M;^  ent  and  Dreux.  But 
none  of  the  ladies  of  the  city  <^i\s  they  always  proudly 
recalled,  could  bring  th^ma  ves  to  pay  Madame 
Ulloa  the  civiUty  she  expect^^  from  them,  and  the 
beautiful  stranger  and  her  Pa  vian  girls,  sneered  at 
as  *  ^colored,"  reigned  alone  \  her  dismal  soirees. 
In  fact  she  was  more  hated,  i  that  were  possible, 
than  her  husband. 

On  the  first  appearance  of  danger,  Gayarr6, 
Loyola,  Navarro  and  the  few  other  Spaniards  who 
were  in  the  city,  w4th  some  of  their  French  friends, 
gathered  around  Ulloa  to  die  with  him  or  save  him. 
They  barricaded  his  house  and  put  it  in  a  state  to 
stand  a  siege.  From  time  to  time  the  frenzied  people 
would  come  rushing  upon  it,  uttering  fierce  shouts 
and  cries  of  vengeance,  but  they  were  always 
restrained  at  the  last  moment  and  prevented  from 
committing  the  outrage  intended.  In  the  evening, 
when  Ulloa  sullenly  consented  to  retreat  to  the 
Spanish  frigate  awaiting  him,  the  three  Spanish  com- 
missioners accompanied  him.     A  large  concourse  of 


260  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

people  waited  on  the  river  bank  to  see  his  departure. 
As  Loyola,  Gayarre  and  Navarro  approached  the 
bank,  returning  from  the  Spanish  vessel  in  their 
boat,  the  crowd  opened  before  them  with  respect, 
and  as  the  gentlemen  passed  through  to  their 
residences  they  bowed  right  and  left  with  stately 
formality;  in  their  steady  look  there  was  neither 
fear,  anger  nor  defiance,  only  an  expression  of  cold 
indifference.  And  it  is  always  related  as  typical  of 
the  manners  of  the  Spaniards  that,  as  the  vessel 
glided  away,  the  Captain  ^  standing  on  his  quarter- 
deck, bowed  to  the  crow(d  while  the  guns  of  his  ship 
fired  a  salute.  ic 

In  the  calm  that  follo^^ied  the  storm,  the  revolution 
being  accomplished,  aio  ominous  stillness  fell  upon 
the  minds  of  the  popuiace  and  all  ideas  of  further 
resistance  were  gradually  abandoned.  The  schemes 
of  the  idealistic  Lafreniere  and  his  partisans  began 
to  demonstrate  their  utter  impracticability.  Loyola, 
Gayarre  and  Navarro  saw  their  circle  of  friends 
increasing  and  their  importance  in  the  colony 
rising.  They  were  men  capable  of  sympathizing 
with  the  growing  anxiety  of  their  friends  and  the 
cruel  torture  of  their  suspense.  They  became  pain- 
fully affected,  says  Gayarr6,  by  the  direct  and 
indirect  appeals  to  their  feelings;  but  not  knowing 
what  course  their  government  would  pursue  they 
had  to  be  careful  not  to  commit  themselves  in  any  1 
official  way,  confining  themselves  to  assurances  only 
of  their  feelings  and  wishes  and  to  what  they  thought . 
might  be  expected  from  the  well-known  clemency 
of  Carlos  IIL 

Thus  matters  stood,  to  continue  the  narration  of '; 
Gayarr6,  when,  on  the  24th  of  July,   1769,  New  ' 


GAYARRS  261 

Orleans  was  thrown  in  a  violent  commotion  by  the 
news  that  a  formidable  Spanish  fleet  had  made  its 
appearance  at  the  Balize  in  command  of  General 
O'Reilly  who  had  been  appointed  to  take  possession 
of  Louisiana  and  who  had  brought  with  him  such  a 
large  army  that  resistance  would  be  impossible. 
The  leaders  of  the  insurrection,  seeing  at  last  the 
hopelessness  of  their  condition,  became  greatly 
alarmed  and,  in  desperation,  sought  counsel  from 
Aubry.  He  cheered  and  encouraged  them  with  his 
belief  that  O'Reilly  could  not  possibly  have  the 
intention  of  spreading  te^Tor  and  desolation  in  the 
province,  and  he  counselle  1  them  to  see  the  General 
themselves.  As  no  blood  had  been  spilled,  it  was 
to  be  hoped  that  if  the  colonists  submitted  now 
promptly,  their  trust  in  the  clemency  of  His  Catholic 
Majesty  would  not  be  in  vain. 

In  the  afternoon  came  the  news  that  a  Spanish 
officer  was  coming  up  the  river  with  despatches  from 
O'Reilly  to  Aubry.  ^^On  that  night,"  to  profit  by 
Gayarr6's  description,  * 'there  was  no  thought  of 
sleep  for  the  greater  part  of  the  population.  They 
were  seen  clustering  in  groups  in  the  streets  or 
hurrying  from  house  to  house.  About  ten  o'clock, 
Loyola,  Gayarr^  and  Navarro,  preceded  by  torches 
and  followed  by  friends,  were  seen  going  through 
the  streets  to  the  landing  place.  At  eleven,  the 
Spanish  envoy,  Francisco  BouUgny,  arrived  in  front 
of  the  Place  d'Armes,  and,  jumping  ashore,  was 
greeted  by  his  countrymen.  Passing  through  the 
large  and  anxious  crowd,  they  quickly  walked  to 
the  house  of  the  Governor,  who  was  in  bed,  but  he 
arose  at  once  to  receive  O'Reilly's  messenger,  who 
translated  to  him  the  Spanish  communication  that 


262  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

he  bore.  On  the  next  day  Bouligny,  the  three 
Spanish  commissioners  and  the  most  influential 
among  the  French  officers  and  citizens  dined  with 
Aubry.  The  dinner  was  very  gay,  and  Aubry  took 
occasion  to  assure  BouUgny  that  the  people  had 
listened  to  counsels  of  prudence  and  were  prepared 
to  act  on  them. 

When  Bouligny  departed  the  following  day,  he 
was  accompanied  by  Lafreniere,  Marquis  and 
Milhet  who  had  decided,  according  to  their  well- 
known  courage,  to  present  themselves  to  the  Spanish 
General  and  assume  the  responsibility  of  the  revolu- 
tion. After  forty  hours  on  the  way,  they  reached 
the  Balize  and  were  presented  by  Bouligny  to 
O'Reilly,  who  received  them  with  dignified  poUte- 
ness.  After  a  long  interview  with  them  he  detained 
them  to  dinner,  treating  them  with  the  most  delicate 
attention,  displaying  the  utmost  suavity  of  manner 
and,  in  short,  sending  the  Creoles  away  fully  im- 
pressed with  the  certainty  that  their  past  misde- 
meanor should  be  forgotten,  reports  Bouligny  who 
was  present  at  both  interview  and  dinner. 

The  city  sighed  with  relief  and  hope  began  to 
soothe  its  troubled  inhabitants.  We  know  the  sub- 
sequent movement  of  the  drama  and  its  tragic 
fifth  act.  Shakespeare  himself  could  not  have 
invented  a  more  poignant  crisis  than  the  arrest,  the 
trial,  the  condemnation,  the  appalling  sentence  and 
the  agony  of  the  citizens.  Some  of  the  Creole  ladies 
whose  husbands,  fathers  or  brothers  had  taken  no 
part  in  the  revolution  but  who  were,  on  the  con- 
trary, in  favor  of  Spain,  hoping  to  exercise  some 
influence  over  O'Reilly,  demeaned  themselves,  as 


gayarr:^  263 

they  afterwards  felt  it,  to  make  a  passionate  appeal 
to  him  for  mercy  for  the  condemned,  pouring  out 
their  souls  to  him  in  supplication;  but  the  Irish- 
Spaniard,  looking  upon  them  with  his  cold,  crafty 
eyes,  resisted  them  with  inexorable  firmness  and 
with  the  same  '^suavity"  of  manner  that  his  friends 
say  characterized  him.  Loyola,  Navarro  and 
Gayarr6,  under  the  irresistible  impulse  of  their  own 
feelings,  went  to  him  and  spoke  for  the  people  among 
whom  they  had  lived  for  three  years,  advising  the 
hard-hearted  man  at  least  to  assume  the  responsi- 
bility of  suspending  the  sentence  until  further  orders 
could  be  received  from  Spain.  Their  answer  was 
that  the  condemned  would  be  executed  the  next 
day — and  they  were. 

When  O'Reilly  departed,  Loyola  went  with  him 
to  Cuba,  where  his  wife  awaited  him.  Navarro 
followed  soon  after.  Don  Estevan  Gayarr^  remained 
in  Louisiana  with  his  son  who  had  been  appointed 
by  O'Reilly  Commissary  of  War,  although  but 
eighteen  years  of  age.  Don  Estevan  subsequently 
obtained  leave  to  retire  to  his  native  country  and  to 
be  put  on  the  list  of  retired  pensioners.  He  died  at 
the  close  of  the  century.  The  following  letter 
written  by  him  to  one  of  his  grandsons  in  Louisiana 
was  preserved  by  Charles  Gayarr^,  and  was  often 
quoted  by  him  in  his  old  age — with  sad  effect. 

"My  son,  I  may  say  that  I  have  already  one  foot  in  the  grave. 
I  have  httle  of  earthly  goods  to  bequeath  or  dispose  of,  contenting 
myself  with  leaving  at  my  death  what  will  be  necessary  to  bury  me 
in  seven  feet  of  ground  with  the  little  but  honorable  exhibition  of 
mihtary  pomp,  within  which  have  shrunk  all  my  vain  hopes  in  this 
miserable  world.  Yea,  such  is  this  world!  Its  flitting  glories  fade 
away — and  there  remains  nothing  but  the  alternate  lassitude  and 


1I 

264  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

seK-torment  of  thought.    Therefore  a  pure  and  sound  mind  ought 
ever  to  have  its  eyes  fixed  on  heaven."* 

Don  Juan  Antonio  Gayarre  was  one  of  the  brilliant 
young  Spanish  officers  who  effected  practically  the 
union  of  Louisiana  with  Spain  by  marrying  into 
the  families  of  the  French  officials  of  the  province. 
According  to  the  precise  notes  left  by  him  in  his 
own  beautiful  handwriting,  he  was  born  ^^or  bap- 
tized in  the  Catholic  faith,  for  in  Spain  no  differ- 
ence is  made  between  them,"  on  the  14th  of  March, 
1752.  On  April  23rd,  to  follow  the  venerable 
record  of  the  Cathedral,  ^'the  Sieur  Jean  Antoine 
Gayarr^,  legitimate  son  of  Sieur  Etienne  Gayarr^ 
and  Dame  Marie  Francois  Cochard,  was  married  to 
Dame  Constance  Grand-Pre,  native  of  this  parish, 
and  legitimate  daughter  of  M.  Louis  de  Grand-Pr6 
and  Dame  Therese  Galar  de  Chamilly,'^  in  the 
Cathedral  of  St.  Louis."  The  record  bears  the 
interesting  signature  of  Fr.  Dagobert,  grand  vicar 
and  curate  of  the  parish. 

The  Chevalier  de  Grand-Pr6  had  come  into 
Louisiana  in  the  time  of  Bienville  and  had  received 
the  Cross  of  St.  Louis  for  his  long  and  faithful 
service.  It  is  of  significant  interest  to  note  that  this 
Chevalier  de  Grand-Pre  was  a  descendant  of  the 
Sieur  Pierre  Boucher,  the  early  Governor  of  Trois 
Rivieres  in  Canada,  and  the  first  Canadian  ennbloed 
by  Louis  XIV.  He  was  also  the  author  of  the  first 
published  account  of  that  country. 

Carlos  Anastasio  Estevan  de  Gayarr6  (the  father 
of  the  historian)  was  born  on  January  2nd,  1774, 
and,  "to  conform  to  the  custom  of  this  country," 
was  baptized  on  the  12th  of  February,  1775. 

*  From  "The  Spanish  Domination." 


GAYARR^  265 

The  godparents  were  the  grandparents,  with  Don 
Luis  Nicola  de  la  Landa  and  Donna  Juana  Sophia  de 
la  Landa.  Antonio  Estevan  de  Gayarr6,  the  second 
son,  was  born  in  1775.  Luis  Estevan  de  Gayarr6 
was  born  in  1777. 

Don  Juan  Antonio  Gayarr6  distinguished  himself 
second  only  to  his  brilliant  commander-in-chief, 
Galvez,  in  the  glorious  little  campaign  against  the 
English  in  1779,  which  resulted  in  the  conquest  of 
Manchac,  Baton  Rouge,  Natchez,  Mobile  and 
Pensacola,  or  the  whole  English  Province  of  West 
Florida.  In  the  distribution  of  honors  and  rewards 
that  followed  the  successful  termination  of  the  war, 
Don  Juan  Antonio  Gayarr6  w^as  appointed  Contador 
Real  of  the  rich  post  of  Acapulco.  He  died  there  and 
his  wife  returned  to  her  birthplace,  bringing  her 
three  sons  with  her. 

Of  these,  Carlos  married  the  youngest  daughter  of 
Etienne  de  Bore.  He  lived  with  de  Bor6  on  his 
plantation  and  became  the  father  of  the  historian. 
Although  born  in  Louisiana,  he  remained  fixedly 
loyal  to  Spain  and  to  his  Spanish  ancestors.  Always 
at  the  head  of  his  bed,  relates  his  son,  hung  his  coat 
of  arms  with  its  three  mountains  spanned  by  a 
bridge,  surmounted  by  the  turbaned  head  of 
Abderahman,  the  testimonial  of  the  proud  day 
when  the  Gayarr^s  defeated  the  Sultan  in  their 
native  valley  of  Roncal,  about  the  year  800. 
AVhen  Napoleon  invaded  Spain,  Carlos  Gayarr^, 
in  the  presence  of  his  father-in-law,  respectfully 
suppressed  his  feelings.  But  when  came  the 
announcement  of  French  triumphs  in  Spain  he 
would  retire  to  his  chamber  in  which  his  little  son 
would  hear  the  sound  of  passionate  playing  of  the 


266  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

guitar  and  the  passionate  singing  of  Spanish  patriotic 
songs. 

He  held  an  office  under  the  Commissary  of  War 
when  the  colony  was  transferred  to  France  and  was 
one  of  the  Spanish  officers  who  consented  to  receive 
a  commission  from  the  French  Republic.  The 
colonial  prefect,  Laussat,  appointed  him  First 
Lieutenant  of  the  Third  Company  of  Louisiana 
Mihtia  in  1803.  In  1807,  he  was  appointed 
Captain  of  the  Fourth  Company  by  Governor 
Claiborne.  His  name  is  enrolled  in  the  first  Masonic 
Lodge  founded  in  Louisiana.  To  quote  his  own 
note,  ''On  the  1st  June,  1799,  I  was  received  as 
Mason  in  the  Tarfaite  Union.' ''  One  of  the  reUcs 
remaining  of  him  is  a  little  packet  which  contains 
his  regalia  and  the  certificate  of  the  degrees  that  he 
took  in  the  order.  His  portrait  represents  him  in  the 
prime  of  his  youth  and  manly  beauty;  he  did  not 
live  beyond  them,  dying  in  1813,  in  New  Orleans. 
He  was  buried  in  the  tomb  of  his  wife's  family  in  the 
old  St.  Louis  Cemetery. 

Like  his  father,  he  left  behind  him  a  "note  de  ma 
naissance  et  celle  de  ma  famille": 

22nd  January,  1774,  I  was  born. 

19th  January,  1783,  was  born  Dame  Marie  Elizabeth  Bor6,  my 
wife. 

9th  January,  1805,  was  born  Charles  Etienne  Arthur,  my  eldest 
son. 

12th  June,  1807,  was  born  Ferdinand  Etienne  Gayarr^,  my 
second  son. 

♦Ferdinand  Gayarr4  had  an  unhappy  life,  and  died  in  consequence 
of  it  in  his  early  prime. 


Toilette  Table.    St.  Domingo  Mahogany, 


CHAPTER  XVII 
CHARLES  GAYARRE 

CHARLES  GAYARRE,  the  historian  of  Louisiana 
— name  and  title  came  almost  together  ninety- 
three  years  ago,  and  so  closely  has  the  slow  process 
of  time  welded  them  that  it  would  take  as  many 
years  again  to  divorce  them  or  for  our  ears  and 
tongues  to  unlearn  their  habit  of  coupling  one  with 
the  other.  To  Louisianians,  indeed,  it  seems  that 
Gayarre  was  not  only  the  historian  of  Louisiana  but 
the  history  of  it  as  well ;  and  when,  upon  the  morning 
of  February  11th,  1895,  it  became  known  that 
Charles  Gayarre  had  passed  away,  when  the  little 
black-bordered  notices  of  his  death  were  affixed  to 
the  posts  on  the  street  corners  of  New  Orleans, 
according  to  the  local  custom,  the  feeling  aroused 
was  not  simply  that  a  great  and  a  good  and  a  useful 
life  had  ceased  to  exist  in  the  community,  but  also 
that  a  great,  good  and  useful  volume  had  been 
closed — the  volume  of  the  past  of  city  and  state — 
which  had  stood  so  long  open  and  ready  for  all  who 
wished  to  profit  by  it  that,  like  old  folios  and  precious 
classics  in  public  libraries,  it  seemed  chained  to  our 
eternal  service. 

Charles  Gayarr6  was  born  in  the  month  of  January, 
1805,  and  baptized  in  the  parish  church  of  the 
Cathedral  of  New  Orleans,  receiving  the  name  of 
Charles  Etienne  Arthur,   or,   as  it  stands  in  the 

269 


■X 


270  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Spanish,  Carlos  Estevan  Arturo.  The  ceremony  was 
performed,  registered  and  signed  by  Fr.  Antonio  de 
Sedilla,  the  Pere  Antoine  whose  name  is  connected 
with  the  church  of  Louisiana  in  the  same  indis- 
soluble manner  as  the  name  of  the  infant  he  baptized 
with  its  history. 

The  cession  of  Louisiana  to  the  United  States  was 
still  a  recent  event  in  the  city.  The  official  act  and 
pageant  of  transfer  had  taken  place  only  the  winter 
before.  Of  the  large  group  at  the  baptismal  font,  the 
infant  was  the  only  American;  the  others  were  all 
colonists — French  or  Spanish.  Ninety  years  later, 
Charles  Etienne  Arthur  Gayarr6  was  again  borne 
into  the  church  of  St.  Louis  to  receive  its  last,  as  he 
had  received  its  first,  blessing  on  his  fife. 

His  life  had  been  a  long  one,  overspanning  the 
average,  not  by  years  but  by  generations.  He  had 
seen  the  new  things  of  his  parents^  day  become  old, 
and  the  old  linger  along  in  the  heart  like  the  echo 
of  a  cathedral  chant;  he  had  seen  the  transplanted 
flag,  language  and  government  become  home  bred 
to  the  soil,  and  the  people  who  had  stood  around  his 
baptismal  font  disappear  in  the  dim  distance  of 
tradition.  In  his  childless  old  age,  when  time  was 
bearing  him  ever  farther  and  farther  from  his  native 
time,  he  used  to  sigh  over  his  isolation  and  the 
dreariness  of  that  land  of  exile  in  which  octogenarians 
live.  Of  all  the  friends  that  he  started  with  in  youth, 
a  goodly  circle,  but  one,  a  schoolmate,  survived  to 
accompany  him  to  the  end.   .    ,    . 

Fr.  Antonio's  certificate  of  baptism,  with  other 
certificates  antedating  it,  signed  by  him  or  his  no 
less  celebrated  predecessor,  Pere  Dagobert,  recording 
the  baptism,  marriage,  death,  of  father,  mother, 
grandparents,    uncles,    granduncles,    together   with 


CHARLES  GAYARR-^  271 

testaments,  titles  of  property,  and  preciously 
guarded  letters,  remain  in  the  archives  of  the 
Gayarr6  family.  They  must  have  been  laid  aside 
in  some  miraculous  casket,  it  would  seem,  to  have 
been  preserved  entire  through  the  fierce  tempest  of 
war,  ruin  and  devastation  that  scattered  and  made 
flotsam  and  jetsam  of  all  that  the  lives  that  they 
chronicled  held  as  tangible  possessions. 

Like  poets,  historians  are  born,  not  made.  As  a 
child,  Gayarr^  lived  in  intimate  touch  with  the 
chronicles  of  a  century  earUer  than  his  own.  By 
merely  listening  to  his  home  gossip,  the  tales  of 
maternal  and  paternal  reminiscence,  and  the  talk 
of  nurse,  teacher  and  playmate,  he  could  see  and  feel 
in  imagination  not  only  the  very  beginning  of  the 
Colony,  but  the  conception  of  its  beginning,  in 
Canada  and  in  Normandy.  What  followed  thence- 
forth— French  and  Spanish  Domination,  the  cession 
to  France,  and  the  cession  to  the  United  States — ^he 
knew  as  the  child  born  seventy-five  years  later, 
knew  the  events  of  the  Civil  War  and  of  the  recon- 
struction era.  What  historians  of  to-day  study 
painfully  from  documents  (now  that  Gayarr^  is  no 
more),  he  knew  as  he  knew  his  family  ties.  Our 
historical  questions  were  to  him  questions  of  mem- 
ory; and  his  memories  have  become  to  us  historical 
documents. 

Gayarr6  tells  us  in  some  of  the  most  charming  and 
valuable  pages  he  ever  wrote,  ''A  Louisiana  Planta- 
tion of  the  Old  Regime,"*  how  he  passed  his  child- 
hood on  the  plantation  of  his  grandfather,  Etienne 
de  Bore.  It  was  situated  six  miles  above  the  city, 
measuring  from  the  Cathedral,  and  was  reached 
by  the  public  road  winding  along  the  river  bank. 

*  Harper's  Magazine.     March,  1887. 


272  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

In  front,  it  presented  an  imposing  appearance. 
The  avenue  of  pecan  trees  that  led  from  the  high- 
road was  arrested  by  a  deep  moat,  edged  on  its 
farther  side  by  an  impenetrable  hedge  of  Yucca  or 
' 'Spanish  Bayonet.''  Behind  this  was  a  great  grass- 
covered  rampart  bearing  a  massive  brick  wall.  But 
Nature  then,  as  now,  proved  a  mocker  of  the  im- 
posing. The  waters  of  the  jealous  moat  became 
in  time  thick  with  dainty  fish.  The  Yucca  hedge, 
with  its  sharp-pointed  dagger  leaves,  sent  up  such 
luxuriant  staffs  of  its  beautiful  waxen,  bell-shaped 
flowers  that  it  made  the  spring  glorious  to  the  child, 
and  the  sturdy  rampart  and  surrounding  brick  wall 
so  protected  an  inner  hedge  of  wild  orange  that  its 
golden  fruit  made  the  winter  as  resplendent.  The 
drive  to  the  house  described  a  circle,  and  was 
bordered  with  sweet  orange  trees,  whose  golden  fruit 
made  it  glorious. 

Gayarr6  tells  us  that  he  learned  his  alphabet 
from  one  Lefort,  who  lived  in  a  house  on  the  upper 
limit  of  the  Foucher  plantation  and  kept  a  school 
which  was  well  attended  by  the  children  of  the 
planters  on  both  sides  of  the  river.  Lefort  was  a 
man  of  culture  but  rough  and  given  to  whipping  his 
pupils  unmercifully.  When  past  eighty,  the 
historian  related  that  he  had  not  yet  forgotten  the 
blows  given  him,  when  a  child  of  six,  for  imperfect 
pronunciation  of  the  English  word  ^'the."  At  nine 
years  of  age,  Gayarr6  was  promoted  from  this 
teacher  and  sent  as  a  boarder  to  the  College  of 
Orleans.  In  the  opening  pages  of  'Ternando  de 
Lemos,"  he  describes  this  historic  institution  of 
learning,  with  its  courtly  President,  Jules  d'Avezac, 
whom     the     students     affectionately     nicknamed 


CHARLES  GAYARR^  273 

' 'Titus/ ^  and  its  corps  of  professors,  composed  of 
original  types  of  scholars  and  gentlemen.  The 
rules  of  life  and  study  there  were  Spartan  in  their 
austere  simplicity,  and  they  were  enforced  with 
Spartan  sternness.  No  puerilities,  except  in  age, 
were  permitted  the  scholars.  Even  the  afternoon 
walks  and  weekly  visits  to  the  theatres  were  admin- 
istered with  rigid  regard  to  duty  rather  than  to 
amusement. 

Gayarr^  was  in  this  college  in  the  memorable  year 
of  the  British  invasion.  He  relates  that,  on  the 
second  of  December,  about  three  o'clock,  there  was 
a  great  commotion  in  the  learned  precincts.  The 
news  had  arrived  in  New  Orleans  that  the  British 
had  landed  in  Louisiana  and  that  they  had  been  seen 
on  a  plantation  below  the  city.  Studies  w^ere  sus- 
pended, classrooms  closed,  alarmed  pupils  hurried 
to  and  fro,  parents  poured  in  to  take  their  children 
away.  Gayarr6  and  his  cousin,  Frederic  Toucher, 
were  left  so  long  that  they  began  to  fear  they  had 
been  forgotten  and  had  been  left  to  shift  for  them- 
selves in  the  face  of  the  British  invasion.  At 
the  last  moment,  however,  an  aunt  sent  for  them. 
She  lived  in  a  house  on  Dumaine  and  Royal  Streets, 
and  the  two  boys  stood  on  the  gallery,  with  her  and 
other  ladies  of  the  household,  and  looked  at  the 
troops  marching  by,  hastening  to  meet  the  enemy 
below.  At  seven  o'clock  the  fighting  began,  ''and 
the  roar  of  artillery  and  discharge  of  musketry  were 
almost  as  distinctly  heard  as  if  the  battle  were  in 
the  immediate  neighborhood.  There  was  not  the 
slightest  noise  in  the  city;  it  held  its  breath  in  awful 
suspense." 

The  two  boys  and  the  ladies,  petrified  into  absolute 


274  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

silence  by  their  apprehensions,  stood  on  the  balcony 
until  half-past  nine  o'clock,  when  the  firing  gradually 
ceased ;  and  then  they  passed  a  never-to-be-forgotten 
hour  of  anxiety.  Were  their  defenders  retreating, 
pressed  by  the  enemyf  What  was  happening? 
About  eleven  o'clock  the  city's  awful  silence  was 
broken;  the  furious  gallop  of  a  horse  was  heard,  and 
the  cry  of  the  horseman,  shouting  as  loud  as  he  could, 
'Victory!    Victory!" 

Early  the  next  morning  the  children  were  sent  to 
their  homes.  On  the  eighth  of  January,  when  the 
decisive  battle  on  the  field  of  Chalmette  was  fought, 
the  child  stood  on  the  gallery  of  his  grandfather's 
house,  with  the  ladies  of  the  family,  who  were  pale 
and  trembling  with  fear.  No  man  was  visible:  the 
only  one,  de  Bor^,  who  had  remained  at  home,  on 
account  of  age,  had,  when  the  battle  began,  gone  up 
to  the  top  of  the  balcony  for  observation.  When  the 
firing  ended  he  came  down  from  his  post  and  an- 
nounced to  his  daughter  that  the  Americans  were 
victorious.  His  soldier's  ear  had  distinguished  that 
the  American  guns  had  silenced  the  English. 

All  that  is  known  of  Gayarr^'s  youth  is  what  can 
be  gathered  from  his  descriptions  of  other  people. 
He  stayed  at  the  College  of  Orleans  until  he  com- 
pleted bis  education  in  1825;  when  twenty  years  old, 
he  published  his  first  work — a  pamphlet  on  the 
subject  of  the  Livingston  Criminal  Code,  opposing 
some  of  Livingston's  views,  and  particularly  his 
recommendation  of  the  abolition  of  capital  punish- 
ment, which  the  young  Creole  combated  as  an 
innovation  of  dangerous  application  in  the  State  of 
Louisiana.  The  pamphlet,  whether  it  aided  public 
opinion  on  the  subject  or  not,  certainly  reflected  it; 


c3 

O 
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O 
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a 

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CHARLES  GAYARRS  277 

for  Livingstones  system  of  penal  law  for  the  State  of 
Louisiana,  though  it  was  admired  and  commended 
by  the  most  celebrated  philosophers,  philanthropists 
and  statesmen  of  that  day,  was  never  adopted  by  the 
State  for  which  it  was  framed. 

In  1826,  Gayarr6  went  to  Philadelphia  and  re- 
mained there  for  three  years,  for  the  double  purpose 
of  studying  law  and  of  perfecting  himself  in  the 
English  language,  which  was  still  taught  and  spoken 
as  an  alien  tongue  in  New  Orleans.  He  studied  in 
the  office  of  William  Rawle,  the  distinguished  jurist 
and  legal  author.  He  was  admitted  to  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Bar  in  1828;  a  year  later,  upon  his  return  to 
New  Orleans,  he  was  admitted  to  the  practice  of  law 
in  Louisiana. 

The  man  of  that  era  whose  character  to  us  of  to- 
day was  most  strongly  marked,  whose  individuality 
was  most  clearly  cut  against  the  background  of  the 
time,  was  Frangois  Xavier  Martin,  Associate  Justice 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Louisiana,  and  author  of  a 
then  recently  published  ^'History  of  Louisiana.''  No 
one,  to  judge  by  the  accounts  that  have  come  down 
to  us,  received  so  keen,  so  just  and  so  true  an  impres- 
sion of  Martin's  greatness  of  intellect  as  Gayarr6, 
and  no  one  so  fully  showed  the  effect  of  it.  Martin 
was  the  determining  force  in  Gayarre's  hfe.  He  was, 
in  effect,  Gayarr^'s  Uterary  progenitor. 

The  two  volumes  so  rare  nowadays  and  so  dear 
to  Louisiana  book  lovers — Martin's  first  edition 
of  1827  and  Gayarr^'s  *^Essai  Historique  sur  la 
Louisiane,"  1830 — stand  to  one  another  in  a  nearer 
and  more  sentimental  relationship  than  that  of  mere 
literary  succession,  as  the  product  of  each  shows. 
In  addressing  himself,  as  an  old  man,  to  ^'Louisiana's 


278  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

youthful  citizens,"  Martin  not  only  enumerates  the 
steps  by  which  Louisiana  advanced  from  Indian 
barbarism  to  state  sovereignty  in  the  Federal  Union, 
but  also  traces  for  the  young  historian  a  plan  of 
future  work  which  Gayarr^  faithfully  carried  out  in 
later  years. 

Gayarr^'s  preface  in  his  first  essay  at  writing  his- 
tory is  an  ingenuous  response  to  Martin's  appeal. 
^'A  Louisianian  by  birth  and  blood,"  he  describes  , 
himself,  ''who  has  read  with  emotions  of  filial  piety  ^ 
the  *  History  of  Louisiana,' "  which  Judge  Martin  has 
published  in  English.  Gayarre  acknowledges  that 
he  owes  most  of  his  material  to  the  venerable 
magistrate  and  makes  a  timid  apology  for  his  feeble 
essay  at  an  attempt  to  bring  the  history  of  Louisiana 
within  reach  of  those  whose  tongue  is  French. 

Upon  his  return  from  Philadelphia  (before  he 
pubUshed  his  '^Essai  Historique")  he  was  elected, 
by  a  unanimous  vote,  a  representative  of  the  city  of 
New  Orleans  in  the  Legislature.  There  he  received 
the  compliment  of  being  chosen  by  the  Legislature 
to  write  an  address  complimenting  the  French 
Chamber  on  the  revolution  of  1830.  In  1831,  he 
was  appointed  Assistant  Attorney-General.  In 
1832,  he  became  presiding  Judge  of  the  City  Court 
of  New  Orleans.  In  1835,  when  he  had  barely 
reached  the  constitutional  age,  he  was  elected  to  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States. 

The  calamity  of  his  Hfe,  as  he  always  felt  it,  over- 
took him  here.  A  distressing  form  of  malady  had 
fastened  upon  him,  and  it  seriously  impaired  his 
capacity  for  work.  He  decided  to  go  to  France  and 
seek  medical  assistance  before  assuming  his  duties  at 
Washington.    Three  eminent  physicians  pronounc- 


CHARLES  GAYARRl^  279 

ing  his  case  too  far  advanced  for  relief,  he  resigned 
his  seat  in  the  Senate  and  remained  in  France  for 
medical  treatment  until  1843. 

Readers  of  Fernando  de  Lemos  can  follow  him  as, 
under  the  thin  disguise  of  a  pseudonym  (a  favorite 
literary  device  of  the  period),  he  travels  hither  and 
thither  in  France,  now  to  some  springs  to  drink  the 
waters,  now  to  some  city  or  town  in  search  of  his- 
torical information,  conversing  on  the  road  with  his 
fellow  travelers  of  all  conditions  and  storing  their 
expressions  and  opinions  in  his  wonderful  memory. 
The  prestige  of  his  name,  wealth  and  official  title, 
enhanced  by  his  rare  intellectual  gifts,  gained  him  a 
welcome  into  the  literary  and  political  salons  of 
Paris  in  its  brilliant  period  before  the  revolution  of 
1848. 

The  book  is  but  a  dull  substitute  for  the  personal 
recital  which,  with  its  infinite  charm  of  manner  and 
language,  remained  to  the  last  moment  of  the 
author's  life  a  deUght  to  his  friends.  The  balls  at 
the  Tuileries;  the  salon  of  Madame  Ancelot;  the 
fancy  ball  at  the  Spanish  Ambassador's;  Louis 
Philippe;  the  old  Maid  of  Honor  to  Josephine;  de 
Tocqueville;  Balzac;  Lamartine;  Casimir  Perier, 
the  famous  physician ;  Koreff ,  the  hangman  of  Paris ; 
Mademoiselle  Lenormant,  and  all  the  long  list  of 
historic  Louisiana  famiUes  then  living  in  Paris,  with 
their  anecdotes  and  their  experiences — many  a 
dreary  hour  in  his  own  life  and  in  the  Hves  of  others 
he  beguiled  into  a  pleasant  one  by  these  reminiscences. 
He  learned  to  know  Paris  as  he  knew  New  Orleans; 
and  he  loved  it  only  second  to  his  native  city.  But 
the  cure  he  sought  there  he  did  not  find  and  he  was  a 
chronic  sufferer  throughout  his  long  life. 


280  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Shortly  after  his  return  from  France  he  married 
a  beautiful,  charming  and  most  intelligent  lady — 
Mrs.  Ann  Buchannan,  a  member  of  the  prominent 
Ricks  family  of  Mississippi.  The  union  proved  a 
perfect  one,  although  childless,  and,  as  the  husband 
always  avowed  with  emotion,  she  was  life's  great 
compensation  to  him  for  the  many  disappointments 
and  misfortunes  he  had  suffered. 

The  absence,  which  apparently  cost  the  loss  of  his 
services  to  the  State  for  eight  years,  proved,  on  the 
contrary,  a  period  of  unexpected  usefulness.  As 
soon  as  his  health  permitted,  he  threw  himself 
ardently  again  into  the  study  of  the  history  of 
Louisiana,  working  now,  not  from  the  material 
furnished  by  Martin  and  local  traditions,  but  from 
the  vast  collections  of  historical  documents  lying 
stored  in  the  archives  of  the  Ministry  of  the  Marine 
and  Colonies  in  Paris — -a  field  hitherto  unexplored 
by  American  historians.  His  researches  in  it  were  so 
thorough  that  little  of  moment  has  been  added  to 
them  by  after  gleaners. 

Gayarr6's  family  connections  gave  him  access  to 
private  archives  and  documents  that  but  for  him 
would  never  have  been  exhumed.  When  he  returned 
to  Louisiana  he  brought  with  him,  therefore,  a  new 
history  of  Louisiana  practically  complete.  He  wrote 
it  in  French  to  preserve  the  text  of  the  official 
documents  copied  from  the  French  archives,  which 
form  the  bulk  of  the  volume,  and  published  it  in 
New  Orleans.  The  first  volume  appeared  in  1846; 
the  second,  in  1847. 

The  work  has  been  so  long  out  of  print  that  it  is 
rarer  now  than  the  ''Essai  Historique,''  but  covering, 
as  it  does,  the  official  history  of  Louisiana  from  its 


CHARLES  GAYARR:^  281 

colonization  by  Iberville  to  its  cession  by  France  to 
Spain,  it  is  a  treasure  of  reference  to  the  student. 
The  only  rival  it  has  in  Louisiana  bibliography  is 
Gayarr^'s  later  and  last  history.  A  good  appraise- 
ment of  its  value  can  be  made  by  comparing  it  with 
other  histories  of  the  same  scope  published  in  the 
United  States  at  that  date,  or  for  a  score  of  years 
afterwards.  Had  it  been  written  in  the  language  of 
the  country  and  brought  thus  within  the  reach  of  the 
ordinary  writers  and  teachers,  it  is  but  truth  to  say 
that  it  would  have  elevated  the  standard  of  historical 
research  of  the  time  and  advanced  by  a  generation 
the  method  of  the  study  of  original  documents  that 
is  the  rule  to-day.  But  it  could  not  fail  to  awaken 
local  enthusiasm  and  a  revival  of  interest  in  the  past 
of  the  State  whose  future  greatness  was  becoming  the 
political  creed  of  the  hour. 

The  work  has  its  defects  in  the  rigidity  of  a  con- 
tinuous series  of  copied  documents.  Even  while 
composing  it,  Gayarre  conceived  the  plan  of  a  larger, 
freer,  more  comprehensive  use  of  the  same  material, 
and  the  addition  to  it  of  a  volume  to  be  collected  from 
American  archives,  and  written  in  the  language  of 
the  country. 

At  this  period,  the  'Teople's  Lyceimi'^  (New 
Orleans  having  so  far  progressed  in  its  Americaniza- 
tion) invited  Gayarre  to  deliver  one  of  its  twelve 
annual  lectures.  As  a  bird  from  a  cage,  his  heart 
seems  to  have  bounded  from  the  hard-and-fast  con- 
fines of  the  official  documents  that  encompassed 
him  into  the  open  air  and  flowery  pastures  of  'The 
Poetry  and  Romance  of  the  History  of  Louisiana." 
He  culled  from  it  not  one  lecture,  but  a  series  of 
lectures  that  form  the  first  volume  of  the  pubHcation 


282  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

entitled  "The  American  Domination."  In  his 
preface  he  confesses  to  a  humble  imitation  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott  in  this  use  of  the  imagination  as  a  bait 
to  lure  readers  into  a  knowledge  of  history.  Time 
abounds  with  such  attempts  and  history  has  lost 
rather  than  gained  from  the  concession  of  gilded 
facts  to  readers,  for  these  prove  generally  the  most 
annoying  errors  to  get  rid  of  afterwards. 

In  this  case,  however,  the  damage  caused  may  well 
be  overlooked  in  comparison  with  the  good  achieved. 
''The  Poetry  and  Romance  of  Louisiana''  is  the 
portal  through  which  most  readers  enter  the  history 
of  Louisiana.  If,  thereafter,  one  never  feels  quite 
sure  of  the  true  reality  of  the  realm  one  enters,  if 
there  happens  to  the  reader  what  the  author  con- 
fesses happened  to  him,  that  in  it  the  things  of  the 
heart  became  confused  with  the  things  of  the  mind, 
the  gain  has  been  that  in  Louisiana  the  popular  senti- 
ment for  the  history  of  the  State  is  vivid  and  pic- 
turesque, and  that  there  is  not  only  a  popular  but 
also  a  true  poetic  sentiment  for  it  that  has  made 
itself  felt  most  notably  in  the  educational  systems  of 
the  day.  As  a  source  of  inspiration  to  the  dramatist, 
poet  and  novelist,  it  has  been  in  truth  too  generously 
prolific.  To  withdraw  its  contributions,  if  such  an 
experiment  could  be  made,  from  the  fiction  and 
drama  of  the  country  since  its  publication,  would 
[produce  indeed  something  like  a  collapse  in  our 
native  pseudo-historical  literature. 
j  The  second  volume,  "The  French  Domination,*' 
'  is  also  formed  from  a  series  of  lectures,  but  the  author 
says  it  is,  so  far  as  he  could  make  it,  detailed  and 
accurate  history;  in  other  words,  there  are  in  it  no 
adventitious  charms.    While,  however,  it  holds  fast 


CHARLES  GAYARR^  283 

to  the  chronological  documents,  it  is  not  shackled 
iby  them.  It  rises  out  of  them  and  above  them, 
'expanding  with  freedom  and  ease  into  a  narrative 
that  in  truth  gives  such  a  full  satisfaction  of  charm 
and  interest  as  makes  a  Louisianian  well-nigh  afraid 
to  express  any  other  opinion  of  it  than  this — the 
difficulty  is  not  how  to  praise  it,  but  how  not  to 
overpraise  it. 

]\Ieanwhile,  by  what  in  the  experience  of  after 
time  seems  a  political  anomaly,  Gayarr6  was  twice 
chosen  by  the  city  of  New  Orleans  as  ner  repre- 
sentative in  the  Legislature;  and  he  was  also 
appointed  by  two  succeeding  governors  Secretary  of 
State,  a  position  he  held  for  seven  years.  This 
period  represents  the  proudest  and  pleasantest 
years  of  his  life  and  also  of  that  of  the  State,  which 
was  then  in  the  full  glow  of  her  maturity  as  an 
American  commonwealth.  The  friction  between  the 
old  and  the  new  population  had  duly  changed  rough 
into  polished  surfaces;  the  irritating  chafing  under 
the  yoke  of  strange  conditions  had  ceased,  yoke  and 
neck  having  become  habituated  to  one  another  and 
'^the  life  of  the  conamonwealth,^^  to  quote  the  con- 
tented words  of  our  historian,  'Vas  but  a  quiet, 
ever  swelling  stream  of  prosperity. '* 

The  banks  of  such  a  stream  have  ever  proved 
fertile  soil  for  intellectual  culture,  and  they  seemed 
to  prove  so  then  in  Louisiana.  But  the  stream  of 
prosperity,  alas!  has  found  so  many  impediments  in 
its  course  in  the  lifetime  of  the  present  generation 
(whose  whole  strength,  indeed,  has  at  times  been 
devoted  to  keep  a  current  alive  in  it)  that  it  seems 
only  a  part  of  the  usual  vain  and  feeble  boasting  over 
an  age  gone  by  to  say  that  great  institutions,  hand- 


284  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

some  buildings,  schools,  colleges,  public  libraries, 
charities  and  noble  private  benefactions  flourished 
then,  with  every  promise  of  continuous  development, 
where  to-day  the  seed  of  them  are  being  so 
laboriously  resown. 

There  was,  however,  no  consummation  of  thai:  old 
and  passed  prosperity  that  commends  itself  so  much 
to  the  student  of  to-day  as  the  manifest  appreciation, 
public  and  private,  of  the  importance  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  State  as  an  element 
in  the  wise  development  of  the  State.  This  is  an  idea 
that  we  are  familiar  with  at  present — one  that  has 
become  a  part  of  the  educational  outfit  of  every 
State  of  the  Union.  At  that  time,  in  Louisiana, 
Gayarre  was  the  evangelist  of  it — and,  rare  as  the 
exception  sounds,  he  did  not  preach  in  a  desert. 
Appropriations  for  a  statue  of  Washington  by 
Powers,  to  be  placed  in  the  rotunda  of  the  State- 
house;  for  an  equestrian  statue  of  Jackson,  to  be 
placed  in  Jackson  Square;  for  a  monument  on  the 
battlefield  of  Chalmette;  for  swords  and  gold  medals 
to  Mexican  War  generals,  adorn  the  legislative 
records  of  that  period.  They,  all  of  them,  bear  the 
signature  of  Gayarr^. 

During  his  seven  years  in  this  office  the  Secretary 
of  State  had  the  expenditure  of  an  annual  appro- 
priation of  one  thousand  dollars  for  the  purchase  of 
books  for  the  State  Library.  Gayarr^'s  scholarly 
use  of  this  money  changed  a  mere  accumulation  of 
volumes  into  a  library  worthy  of  the  name,  whose 
historical  section,  even  in  its  infirm  and  invalided 
condition  to-day,  commands  the  respect  and  admira- 
tion of  scholars.  Each  rare  volume  in  it  bears  the 
date  of  Gayarre's  incumbency. 


CHARLES  GAYARRli:  285 

Shortly  after  his  return  from  France,  he  secured 
the  purchase  by  the  State  of  the  historical  documents 
copied  by  M.  Felix  Magne  from  the  archives  of  the 
Marine  and  Colonies  in  Paris.  The  two  bulky 
volumes,  for  which  one  thousand  dollars  were  paid, 
are  now  the  precious  heirlooms  of  the  Louisiana 
Historical  Society,  ^vhich  was  resurrected,  in  truth, 
to  receive  them  and  to  carry  on  the  work  of  further 
research  under  the  new  historical  impulse. 

Estabhshed  in  1836,  the  historical  society  had 
languished  and  become  inert  from  lack  of  the  special 
direction  of  effort  necessary  in  such  societies  for 
healthful  activity;  when  Gayarre  became  Secretary 
of  State  he,  with  a  group  of  friends,  revived  the 
society,  reorganized  it,  adopted  a  constitution 
for  it,  and  elected  Martin,  the  venerable  historian. 
President,  wdth  John  Perkins,  the  wealthy  bene- 
factor of  letters  in  Louisiana,  and  J.  D.  B.  De 
Bow,  Secretaries.  If  to  the  above  names  be  added 
those  of  B.  F.  French  and  Edmond  Forstall,  the 
list  of  the  century's  eminent  servitors  of  the  his- 
tory of  Louisiana  will  be  complete.  It  is  a  list 
the  Hke  of  which  will  hardly  be  seen  again  in  the 
annals  of  the  society.  French  was  the  publisher 
of  the  ''Historical  Collections  of  Louisiana'' ;  De  Bow, 
the  editor  of  *'De  Bow's  Review,"  Forstall  (of  the 
old  Creole  family)  w^as  the  author  of  "An  Analytical 
Index  of  the  whole  of  the  Public  Documents  Rela- 
tive to  Louisiana  Deposited  in  the  Departement  de 
la  Marine  et  des  Colonies,  et  Bibliotheque  du  Roi, 
at  Paris." 

Perkins,  delegated  by  the  society  to  make  re- 
searches in  Europe  for  interesting  historical  matter 
relating  to  Louisiana,  secured  the  services  of  Pierre 
Margry,    the    archivist,    to    make    a    transcript, 


286  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

chronologically  arranged,  of  all  the  papers  in  the 
different  archives  of  the  French  Governxnent  referring 
to  Louisiana  from  the  date  of  Iberville's  landing  to 
the  time  of  its  cession  to  the  United  States.  This 
undertaking,  vast  as  it  proved  to  be,  was  superbly 
carried  out  by  Margry;  and  the  pride  of  the  remark 
may  be  excused  here,  that  it  was  to  this  commission 
of  the  Louisiana  Historical  Society  that  the  historical 
students  of  the  United  States  are  indebted  for  what 
was  a  consequence  of  it — the  compilation  and  publi- 
cation of  Margry's  great  and  momentous  work: 
*'D6couvertes  et  EtabUssements  des  Frangais  dans 
rOuest  et  dans  le  Sud  de  I'Amerique  Septentrionale." 

Pushing  his  influence  farther,  Gayarr^  obtained 
from  the  Legislature  of  1847  an  appropriation  of 
two  thousand  dollars  to  be  expended  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Historical  Society  in  procuring  from 
Spain  copies  of  original  documents  relating  to  the 
history  of  Louisiana.  In  his  report  as  Secretary  of 
State  for  1850,  he  gives  the  account  of  the  disburse- 
ment of  this  money  and  his  correspondence  with  the 
United  States  Minister  to  Spain  and  with  Sr.  Pascal 
de  Gayangos  on  the  subject.  Several  packages 
dealing  with  the  transactions  of  the  Spanish  Domina- 
tion were  received  by  the  society,  an  addition  of 
great  value  to  those  already  possessed  in  Louisiana. 
The  investigation,  however,  was  not  completed; 
another  appropriation  was  needed  which,  notwith- 
standing the  warm  recommendation  of  the  Governor 
in  his  message  of  1853,  was  never  passed.  The 
adoption  of  a  new  Constitution  in  1853  occasioned 
the  retirement  of  the  historian  from  his  office  and 
also,  it  may  be  said,  the  retirement  of  the  State  from 
its  patronage  of  letters. 

In  1854  the  third  volume  of  Gayarr^'s  history, 


CHARLES  GAYARRS  287 

"The  Spanish  Domination,"  was  published.  This 
ended  the  colonial  history  of  Louisiana.  The  fourth 
volume,  ^'The  American  Domination,"  was  begun 
at  once,  but  finished  only  after  the  Civil  War  in  1866. 
He  passed  the  years  of  the  Civil  War  in  retirement  at 
his  country  place  "Roncal,"  named  for  the  old  home 
of  the  Gayarr6s  in  Spain.  Here  he  wrote  a  life  of 
Philip  II  of  Spain,  pubUshed  simultaneously  with 
'The  American  Domination." 

'Ternando  de  Lemos"  was  published  in  1872. 
In  1875  Gayarr6  was  appointed  by  the  Judges  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Louisiana  reporter  of  their 
decisions.  This  seemed  at  the  time  a  blessed  inter- 
vention, an  opportunity  for  him.  Looking  back 
upon  it  through  the  corrective  lens  of  years,  the 
opportunity  is  seen  as  all  in  favor  of  the  State;  and 
futile  resentment  must  ever  be  felt  by  the  chronicler 
who  is  called  upon  to  transmit  the  record  that  when, 
by  some  political  exigency  of  the  hour,  the  Supreme 
Court  was  superseded,  the  historian,  whose  reports 
were  a  model  of  their  kind,  was  also  superseded  by 
one  w^ho  was  considered  a  more  valuable  political 
asset  of  the  party  in  power.  The  record  may  as  well 
be  inserted  here,  for  the  sake  of  history,  that  what- 
ever services  Gayarre  might  have  rendered  his 
State,  in  exchange  for  what  Goldsmith  calls  the  best 
encouragement  for  genius — subsistence  and  respect, 
there  w^as  henceforth  always  a  man  younger,  and 
of  more  practical  use  in  politics,  preferred  before 
him.  And  history  demands  also  that  the  fact  be 
not  omitted  that  Gayarre  was  twice  an  applicant 
for  an  insignificant  position  in  the  gift  of  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  and  that  by  two  different 
Presidents  negroes  were  preferred  to  him! 

Note. — One  of  the  good  stories  of  the  war  that  Gayarr6  was  fond 


288  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

of  relating  was  that  on  thie  rumored  advance  of  the  Federal  army— 
in  camp  not  many  miles  away — he  thought  it  only  an  act  of  the 
commonest  prudence  to  follow  the  example  of  his  neighbors  and  hide, 
that  is,  bury  his  valuables.  He,  therefore,  packed  in  a  secure  tin  box 
all  that  he  selected  as  most  precious  to  him:  his  wife's  jewelry  and 
diamonds  and  his  treasured  heirlooms;  the  shoe  buckles  and  sword 
hilt  studded  with  brilliants  that  belonged  to  his  father;  his  grand- 
mother's miniature  in  a  frame  surrounded  with  diamonds;  de  Bora's 
snuffbox;  in  short,  all  the  priceless  innumerable  trinkets  of  genera- 
tions of  his  family.  Selecting  a  good  spot  for  the  purpose  under  a 
tree  that  he  could  easily  identify  afterwards,  he,  accompanied  by  his 
wife,  stealthily  crept  out  to  it  in  the  dead  of  night  but  taking  a 
lantern  with  them !  His  confidential  body  servant,  *  'the  most  accom- 
plished valet  and  rascal  in  the  world,"  according  to  his  master, 
easily  suspecting  what  was  in  the  wind,  played  the  spy  and  watched 
the  burial  of  the  treasure.  Gayarr^  could  not  sleep  for  thinking  of 
his  precious  box  under  the  tree;  by  morning  he  was  at  the  spot  to 
disinter  it ;  but  it  was  gone !  And  the  valet  and  the  carriage  horses  as 
well!  The  plunder  was  sold  in  the  camp  and  for  years  afterward  in 
New  Orleans,  WiUiam,  the  confidential  servant,  hved  on  the  proceeds. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  more  at  the  present 
time,  which  is  as  yet  but  the  morrow  of  a  painful 
yesterday.  The  memory  of  it  is  still  fresh  and 
sensitive.  Some  day  perhaps  the  suffering  in  it  will 
be  forgotten  in  the  spiritual  gain  that  comes  to  one 
generation  from  the  example  of  ill  fortune  nobly 
borne  in  another.  The  pen,  at  best  of  times  a  frail 
support,  became  perforce  Gayarre's  staff  of  life.  He 
had  inherited,  however,  from  his  past  days  of  fortune 
at  least  a  well-known  name  and  reputation.  These 
stood  him  in  good  stead  with  the  pubUshing  world. 

In  1877,  he  was  requested  by  the  editor  of  the 
North  American  Review  to  write  upon  'The  Southern 
Question,'^  then  in  its  most  acute  stage  in  national 
affairs,  as  one  who  could  and  would  treat  it  not  from 
a  sectional  or  partisan,  but  from  a  broadly  historical 


CHARLES  GAYARRJS  289 

point  of  view.  He  accomplished  this  difficult  task 
with  remarkable  dignity  and  skill. 

The  Historical  Society,  which  again  had  suc- 
cumbed to  neglect  and  impoverislmient,  was  again 
revived  by  Gayarre  at  this  time. 

^'Aubert  Dubayet,  or  The  Two  Sister  Republics/' 
was  published  in  1882.  As  name  and  subtitle 
indicate,  it  is  an  historical  romance  connecting  the 
American  and  French  revolutions  by  means  of  one 
of  Louisiana's  favorite  heroes — General  Aubert 
Dubayet  of  the  French  Republican  Army  and 
Minister  of  War  under  the  Directory.  Like  ^Ter- 
nando  de  Lemos,"  it  is  a  landmark  of  the  past  of 
Louisiana,  and  its  value  therefore  one  that  time 
increases. 

This  last  book  was  followed  by  a  period  of  the 
most  stringent  necessity  and,  therefore,  of  the  most 
incessant  activity  of  the  author's  life.  The  ever- 
ready  market  of  the  newspaper  and  magazine  was 
a  continual  incentive  to  his  energy,  and  for  several 
years  he  was  a  steady  contributor  to  it  of  such 
wares  as  he  could  furnish,  mainly  historical  articles 
concerning  the  early  life  of  the  colony.  The  most 
noted  of  these  are: 

"An  Historical  Sketch  of  the  Two  Lafittes;" 

"ffistorical  Sketch  of  Washington's  Surrender  at  Fort  Necessity, 
to  Frangoig  Coulon  Dumonville  de  Villiers,  a  French  Knight  of  St. 
Louis  (whose  family  hag  left  descendants  in  Louisiana) ;" 

"Seward  on  Reconstruction  of  the  Southern  States;" 

"A  Louisiana  Sugar  Plantation  of  the  Old  Regime;" 

"The  New  Orleans  Bench  and  Bar;" 

"An  Old  Street  in  New  Orleans;" 

"The  Norman  on  the  Banks  of  the  Mississippi ;"\/' 

"Don  Carlos  and  Isabelle  de  Valois;" 

"The  Creoles  of  History  and  the  Creoles  of  Romance;" 


290  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

as  well  as  numerous  long  and  valuable  articles  in  the 
current  newspapers  of  New  Orleans. 

For  three  consecutive  winters  Gayarr^  lectured 
upon  Louisiana  history,  at  the  request  of  a  circle 
of  patriotic  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the  city.  His 
record  of  work,  which  had  lasted  sixty-four  years, 
drew  to  a  close  only  a  year  before  his  life  ended. 
Demands  upon  his  time  and  his  courtesy  were  still 
met  generously  as  of  old.  Information  was  given, 
as  it  had  always  been,  freely  to  all  without  discrim- 
ination, in  spite  of  great  abuses  of  such  kindness  in 
the  past.  A  large  correspondence  was  faithfully 
attended  to;  visiting  strangers  were  received  with 
unfaihng  cordiality;  books,  letters,  manuscripts 
were  placed  at  the  disposition  of  any  student  that 
needed  them.  His  memory  never  grew  dim,  for  it 
was  kept  polished  by  incessant  use.  He  was  to  the 
end  always  the  last  resource  and  authority  in  disputes 
over  questions  of  Louisiana  history.  His  circle  of 
friends  grew  smaller  as  he  lived  on,  outliving  them; 
but  the  devotion  of  those  that  remained  increased 
only  the  more.  He  passed  away  quietly,  painlessly, 
his  hand  clasping  the  hand  of  his  wife,  to  whom  he 
had  been  united  in  a  long  and  happy  marriage,  and 
who  survived  him  until  1914,  passing  away  in  her 
ninety-fourth  year  in  the  fullness  of  a  brave  and 
beautiful  old  age. 

He  was  buried  in  his  grandfather^s  tomb,  in  the 
old  St.  Louis  Cemetery, 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
BOULIGNY 

THE  Bouligny  family,  according  to  their  superb 
collection  of  family  documents,  one  of  the  most 
complete  in  the  historical  annals  of  New  Orleans, 
came  originally  from  Milan.  The  name  was 
Bolognini,  and  the  founder  of  the  family  was  Mateo 
Atendolo  Bolognini,  first  Count  of  Bolognini,  who 
married,  in  Milan,  Ysabel  Urcelli.  One  of  his  de- 
scendants in  the  fifth  generation,  Geronimo,  married 
Ysabel  Visconti,  of  the  ducal  house  of  Milan;  and 
iMaximihano,  in  the  eighth  generation,  married 
Juha  Visconti.  In  the  tenth  generation,  Francisco 
Bolognini  w^as  Captain  of  Cavalry  in  the  service  of 
Spain.  He  was  made  prisoner  by  the  French  and 
taken  to  Marseilles,  where  he  changed  his  name  to 
Bouhgny.  He  married  a  French  lady,  Cecilia 
Germain,  in  1649,  and  entered  a  commercial  career. 
He  was  the  father  of  Josef,  who  married  Agnes 
Larchier  and  became  the  father  of  Juan,  born  in 
Marseilles,  1699. 

After  the  war  of  the  Spanish  Succession,  Josef 
settled  in  Alicante,  Spain,  where  he  died.  The 
family  thenceforward  was  Spanish.  Juan,  the  only 
son  of  Josef,  married  Maria  Pared  of  Marseilles  in 
1724.  He  was  the  progenitor  of  the  Louisiana 
family  and  he  was  a  man  of  influence.  He  had  five 
sons  and  six  daughters.  The  oldest  son,  Josef, 
became  a  wealthy  merchant  of  Alicante;  the  second 

291 


292  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

son,  Juan,  became  Spanish  Ambassador  at  Con- 
stantinople and  died  in  Madrid,  in  1789,  Honorary 
Councillor  of  State.  His  son  Josef  was  Ambassador 
Plenipotentiary  of  Spain  at  Stockholm.  The  third 
son  of  Juan  was  Francisco,  who  came  with  O'Reilly  to 
Louisiana.  The  fourth  and  fifth  sons,  Louis  and 
Lorenzo,  were  captains  in  the  Spanish  Army.  The 
Boulignys  occupied  high  positions  in  Spain,  and 
became  connected  by  marriage  with  the  noblest 
families.  The  father  of  Francisco  was  on  inti- 
mate terms  with  General  O'Reilly,  according  to  his 
letters  to  his  son. 

Francisco  Bouligny  was  born  in  Alicante  in  1736; 
he  entered  the  Spanish  Army  in  1758  as  cadet  in  the 
infantry  regiment  of  Zamorra,  serving  two  years; 
and  was  then  transferred  to  the  Royal  Guards, 
serving  one  year  and  nine  months.  In  1762  he  was 
sent  to  Havana,  where  he  remained  seven  years. 
In  1769,  he  came  to  Louisiana  as  aide-de-camp  to 
O'Reilly.  History  relates  that  he  first  set  foot  in 
New  Orleans  on  the  night  of  July  24th,  bearing  a 
communication  from  General  O'Reilly  to  Aubry, 
the  Governor.  His  barge  landed  in  front  of  the 
Place  d'Armes,  where  stood  awaiting  him  the 
Spanish  officials,  Gayarr^,  Navarro  and  Loyola, 
who  received  him  with  open  arms  and  immediately 
conducted  him  to  the  hotel  of  Aubry,  to  whom  he 
delivered  and  translated  the  letter  he  bore. 

But  imagination,  clinging  ever  to  history  like  a 
child  to  its  nurse,  chattering  its  artless  questions 
and  wonderments,  cannot  and  will  not  be  satisfied 
with  merely  the  necessary  information.  The  way 
from  the  Place  d'Armes  to  the  hotel  of  Aubry  leads 
over  the  distance  of  but  a  few  squares  or  ^' Islets f^* 


BOULIGNY  293 

as  they  were  called,  in  the  very  heart  of  the  little 
city.  Bouligny,  glancing  about  him  as  he  walked 
along  through  the  crowded  and  excited  streets 
(Gayarr6  says  that  no  one  went  to  bed  that  night), 
could  not  but  have  noticed  the  fine  manner  and 
courteous  bearing  of  the  men  who  made  way  for 
him  and  his  companions,  saluting  them  respectfully. 
It  was  a  July  night  and  the  doors  and  windows  of 
the  low,  picturesque  houses  must  have  been  frankly 
open,  revealing  their  handsome,  luxurious  rooms, 
set  with  fine-carved  furniture  and  rich  ornaments, 
with  negro  slaves  moving  about  in  them  bearing 
trays  of  refreshing  drinks  in  crystal  glasses.  And 
through  the  open  windows  he  must  have  had 
glimpses  of  beautiful  Creole  faces,  wan  with  anxiety 
and  care,  awaiting  with  fear  in  heart  the  purport  of 
the  very  missive  he  was  bearing — tidings  that  he, 
perhaps,  knew  were  as  a  lifted  sword  over  the  city — 
a  sword  to  drip  with  blood. 

The  soft,  warm  air  of  the  July  night,  heavy  with 
the  fragrance  of  jasmine  and  oleander  and  belated 
blooms  of  magnoha,  the  dusky  green  of  gardens 
about  him,  the  giant  forms  of  moss-laden  oaks  left 
over  from  the  forest,  the  gorgeously  brilliant  stars 
overhead  could  not  but  work  a  charm  upon  him. 
He  was  thirty-three,  handsome,  and  gallant  as  all 
Boulignys  were  and  are  at  thirty-three.  The  beauti- 
ful Creole  faces,  wan  with  anxiety,  must  also  have 
been  not  unconscious  of  him  as  he  passed  by.  What 
his  friends  told  him  casually  of  the  city  he  had  come 
to  (where  they  had  been  living  three  years),  and  of  its 
society,  could  not  but  have  chimed  in  harmoniously 
with  the  impressions  he  was  receiving. 

History  vouchsafes  to  say  that  he  dined  the  next 


294  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

day  with  the  Governor  and  met  the  most  important 
and  influential  of  the  citizens — especially  those  who 
had  been  conspicuous  in  the  revolt  against  UUoa — 
and  that  Aubry  had  taken  the  occasion  to  assure 
him  that  the  hotheads  among  them  had  returned 
(in  plain  words)  to  their  senses  and  that  the  Spanish 
ruler  had  no  more  to  fear  from  them.  Hearing  that 
Lafreniere  and  Milhet  intended  to  present  themselves 
in  person  to  O'Reilly  and  assume  responsibility  for 
the  conduct  of  the  guilty  citizens,  he  offered  to 
accompany  them  and  present  them  himself  to  the 
General  (who  was,  as  we  have  seen,  a  friend  of  his 
father's).  It  took  them  forty-eight  hours  to  reach 
the  Spanish  vessel  at  the  Balize  and  at  the  end  of 
the  journey  they  must  have  learned  to  know  one 
another.  Bouligny  was  present  at  the  interview, 
in  which  the  Creole  gentlemen  showed  themselves 
no  whit  behind  the  Irish-Spaniard  in  dignity  or  in 
address. 

Bouligny  has  left  his  report  of  the  interview,  and 
tradition,  of  course,  repeats  more  than  he  ever  said 
that  his  heart  was  then  frankly  moved  in  favor  of 
his  new  friends.  He  was  present  at  the  dinner 
that  O'Reilly  gave  to  his  Creole  visitors  and,  from 
the  suavity  of  the  General's  manner,  was  persuaded 
that,  as  he  said,  "all  was  forgiven  and  forgotten." 

"How  beautiful  upon  the  mountains  are  the  feet 
of  him  that  bringeth  good  tidings,  that  publisheth 
peace!"  More  beautiful  tidings  or  bringer  of  them 
have  never  come  upon  the  Mississippi  to  New 
Orleans.  From  the  depths  of  despair  the  little  city 
rose  to  the  heights  of  confidence.  O'Reilly's  ruse 
had  succeeded  and  he  could  proceed  now  with  his 


BOULIGNY  295 

game  as  he  had  planned.  The  leaders,  all  unsus- 
pecting of  a  trap,  walked  into  his  presence  in  answer 
to  an  invitation  and  were  instantly  disarmed  and 
conducted  to  a  prison  which  they  never  left  except 
for  the  place  of  execution.  The  form  of  a  trial  was 
gone  through  with  and  the  sentence,  pre-decided  by 
the  military  governor,  w^as  pronounced.  The  in- 
credulity of  the  citizens  passed  into  a  stupor  which 
was  not  dissipated  until  the  ehots  of  the  firing  squad 
were  heard  in  the  barracks  yard. 

Bouhgny  joined  his  efforts  to  those  of  his  friends, 
Loyola,  Gayarr6  and  Navarro,  to  obtain  a  commuta- 
tion of  the  brutal  sentence  or  at  least  a  suspension  of 
its  execution  until  the  government  in  Spain  could 
be  heard  from;  but  they,  like  the  patriots,  had  to 
bow  to  O'Reilly's  cruel  will.  ''If  rulers  but  imagined 
what  visions  coming  time  would  show!"  The 
lilies  of  France  never  bloomed  more  luxuriantly  in 
Louisiana  than  after  Spain  threw  upon  them  the 
blood  of  the  Creole  patriots.  Even  the  flag  that 
O'Reilly  hoisted  to  the  tall  staff  in  the  Place  d'Armes 
drooped  as  if  in  shame  before  them. 

Love  makes  a  quick  growth  when  sympathy 
prepares  the  ground.  During  the  next  year,  Fran- 
cisco Bouhgny  was  married  to  Marie  Louise  le 
Senechal  d'Auberville.  She  was  the  best  that  the 
city  could  give  him  and  in  beauty  and  lineage  worthy 
of  all  that  he  could  offer.  She  was  the  daughter  of 
Vincent  Guillaume  le  Senechal  d'Auberville,  Marine 
Commissioner  of  Louisiana  and  of  Frangoise  Petit 
de  Levilliers  de  Coulange. 

The  Sieur  d'Auberville  w^as  born  at  Brest  in  1713. 
His  father  was  Louis  d'Auberville;  his  mother,  Marie 
d'Ayme  de  Noailles.    The  Sieur  de  Noailles  is  well 


296  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

known  in  Louisiana  history.  He  was  the  officer 
in  command  of  reinforcements  sent  to  Bienville 
in  the  Chickasaw  war  in  1738;  and  Bienville  was 
commanded  to  act  with  him  and  even  under  him, 
as  he  was  a  man  'Vith  the  talent  and  experience 
necessary  for  command.''  The  result  produced  was 
disunion  between  Bienville  and  Noailles;  and,  in 
consequence,  the  failure  of  the  expedition.  He  was 
the  brother  of  Marie  d'Ayme  de  Noailles  and  uncle 
of  the  Sieur  d'Auberville. 

The  marriage  contract  of  the  Sieur  d'Auberville 
and  of  Marie  Frangoise  de  Levilliers  de  Coulange  is 
still  in  existenoe,  signed  by  the  Marquis  de  Vau- 
dreuil.  The  family  of  Petit  de  Levilliers  de  Coulange 
goes  back  in  the  documents  of  the  Bouligny  family 
to  Etienne  Petit,  *' Grand  Audiencier  de  France'' 
under  Louis  XL  Claude  de  Coulange,"  Seigneur 
de  Bustance  en  Auvergne,"  married  Madeleine 
d'Aguesseau  of  the  family  of  the  great  Chancellor 
d'Aguesseau.  (It  will  be  remembered  that  the  mother 
of  Madame  de  S^vign6  was  a  Marie  de  Coulange.) 
After  the  death  of  the  Sieur  d'Auberville,  in  1758,  his 
widow  married  the  Chevaher  Pierre  Gerard  de 
Vilemont. 

Among  the  letters  preserved  by  the  family  is  the 
one  written  by  Don  Francisco's  father  to  him  on  his 
marriage: 

"Alicante,  June  12,  1770. 
"My  very  dear  Son: 

"Your  letter  which  I  received  on  May  26th,  informs  me  of  your 
marriage  with  Miss  Louise  d'Auberville,  daughter  of  the  French 
Intendant-General  of  that  Province,  aged  twenty  years,  well-bred, 
and  of  infinite  merit,  which  I  approve  in  wishing  you  all  kinds  of 
happiness  and  benediction  in  your  new  condition.  May  God  have 
you  in  His  holy  protection  in  good  health  and  good  union  and  grant 


BOULIGNY  297 

you  what  you  may  need.  Give  her  a  kiss  for  me  as  I  cannot  do  so 
personally  on  account  of  the  distance.  Receive  the  benediction  of 
your  father, 

"Jean  Bouliony." 

Another  letter  on  the  same  occasion  comes  from 
the  commanding  General,  O'Reilly: 

"Madame: 

"I  shall  always  be  interested  in  your  happiness  and  will  give  you 
with  pleasure  all  the  proof  of  this  that  depends  upon  me. 

"I  fehcitate  you  upon  your  marriage.    Your  husband  is  a  worthy 
oflficer  whom  I  esteem;  I  hope  you  will  be  happy  together.    It  is 
because  I  am  persuaded  of  this  that  I  wish  you  joy  in  your  union. 
"I  have  the  honor  to  be,  very  respectfully,  Madame, 

"Your  very  humble  and  very  obedient  servant, 

"O'Reilly." 

Among  the  papers  preserved  are  no  less  than 
twenty-seven  letters  written  by  the  Baron 
Carondelet;  some  of  them  on  subjects  of  high 
poHtical  importance,  such  as  the  incredible  conduct 
of  Genet,  the  French  envoy,  and  the  rumor  of  an 
uprising  of  the  slaves;  others  on  subjects  pleasantly 
convivial,  such  as  accepting  BouUgny's  invitation 
to  dinner  on  Sunday,  from  w^hich,  if  it  is  to  be 
ceremonious,  he  begs  to  be  excused,  but  if  it  is  to  be 
merely  friendly  and  in  the  family  he  accepts,  *'muy 
gustoso'\'  assuring  his  hosts  that  it  would  be  a 
pleasure  to  eat  with  them  whenever  he  had  a  moment 
of  relaxation,  but  on  the  condition  that  no  ceremony 
will  be  made  over  him,  for  what  he  seeks  is  the 
pleasure  of  their  society,  etc.,  etc. 

Bouhgny  rose  in  grade  to  ^'Coronel  Vivo,"  and 
was  made  a  Knight  of  St.  Charles.  He  served  with 
distinction  under  Galvez  in  his  famous  little  war 
against  the  Enghsh,  was  present  at  the  capture  of 


298  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Baton  Rouge,  at  the  siege  of  Mobile  and  at  the  final 
triumph  over  Pensacola,  when  he  took  the  fort  by 
storm  at  the  head  of  his  company  and  was  rewarded 
for  it  especially  by  the  King.  He  acted  as  Gov- 
ernor of  Louisiana  in  1784,  during  the  absence  of 
Governor  Miro;  and,  in  1799,  on  the  sudden 
death  of  Governor  Gayoso  de  Lemos,  he,  as  Colo- 
nel of  the  Regiment  of  Louisiana  and  senior  mihtary 
officer  of  the  province,  assumed  the  military  admin- 
istration of  it.  He  died  while  occupying  this  posi- 
tion, according  to  his  certificate  of  death  signed  by 
Fray  Jose  de  Agostin,  on  the  7th  of  August,  1802, 
ending  a  good  and  valuable  life.  A  voluminous 
report  to  the  King  of  Spain  on  the  condition  of 
Louisiana  written  by  him  has  never  been  trans- 
lated or  published;  although,  beyond  a  doubt,  of 
great  interest  and  importance  to  historical  students. 

After  his  death,  his  widow  wrote  to  her  niece,  the 
Senora  Dona  Clementina  de  Bouligny  y  Pizarro 
(daughter  of  Juan  Bouligny,  the  Ambassador),  ask- 
ing to  be  facilitated  in  her  desire  to  remove  to 
Havana,  ^'beheving  that  the  province  would  form  a 
component  part  of  the  Spanish  Domain  we  have 
clung  to  this  time,  in  this  fond  hope."  This  shows  the 
persistent  opinion  maintained  by  the  Spanish  officials 
that  Louisiana  would  never  be  alienated  from  Spain. 

Francisco  left  four  children:  one  daughter,  Marie 
Louise  Josephine,  who  married  the  Chevaher  de  la 
Roche,  an  officer  in  the  militia;  and  three  sons, 
Dominique  Charles,  Frangois  Ursin,  and  Louis. 
Louis  married  Isabelle  Virginie  d'Hauterive,  of  the 
old  and  distinguished  Louisiana  family  of  that  name. 
Dominique  served  in  his  father's  regiment  and  with 
it  passed  over  to  France  and  later  to  the  government 


BOULIGNY  299 

of  the  United  States.  He  married  Anne  Le  Blanc. 
He  was  one  of  the  prominent  Creoles  selected  to  serve 
in  the  Legislative  Council  of  the  Territory  by  the 
House  of  Representatives  on  Governor  Claiborne^s 
recommendation  that  he  was  a  ^ 'young  man  of  sense 
and  supports  a  good  character.''  It  is  always 
mentioned  of  him,  and  it  was  a  distinction  at  the 
time,  that  he  was  educated  in  the  public  schools  of 
the  city. 

Dominique  served  on  the  Committee  for  Public 
Defense  during  the  British  invasion  of  1812.  He 
served  also  as  the  United  States  Senator  for  Louisiana 
from  1824  to  1829.  He  died  in  1833.  Six  sons  and 
six  daughters  survived  him  to  follow  out,  as  he  had 
done,  the  admonition  that  Don  Francisco's  father 
wrote  to  him  from  Spain:  after  describing  the 
escutcheon  of  the  family,  he  says,  ''the  principle 
nobility  is  to  be  'hombre  de  bien,'  of  deeds  without 
reproach,  to  live  in  the  fear  of  God,  obeying  His 
commands." 

The  sons  of  Dominique  were  Ursin,  Gustave, 
Edouard,  Henri,  Alfred,  Dominique.  Both  sons  and 
daughters  married  as  beseemed  their  high  family  and 
social  station,  founding  families  that  have  spread 
like  a  fruitful  vine  over  the  society  of  New  Orleans, 
enriching  it  and  garlanding  it  with  beauty.  To 
unwind  the  thread  of  their  marriages  is  to  untwist 
the  tendrils  of  the  vine;  all  branches  ascend  to  or 
descend  from  the  great  patriarch  Dominique,  the 
son  of  Don  Francisco  and  Louise  d'Auberville. 

The  men  seek  not  brilliant  positions  or  political 
distinctions,  but  though  always  found  in  the  line  of 
pubhc  duty,  live  and  thrive  each  one  in  his  own 
home  spot,  in  quiet  soUtude.    Nevertheless,  two  or 


300  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

three  names  have  burst  the  narrow  confines  of  home. 
Among  them  is  that  of  John  Edouard  Bouligny, 
born  in  New  Orleans  in  1824,  a  nephew  of  Dominique, 
and  like  him  a  lawyer  and  educated  in  the  pubUc 
school;  was  elected  to  the  thirty-sixth  Congress 
from  Louisiana,  serving  in  1861.  He  was  the  only 
representative  from  the  seceding  States  who,  at  that 
time,  did  not  leave  his  seat.  He  died  in  Washington 
in  1864. 

Ever  to  be  remembered  with  gratitude  by  Louis- 
iana historical  students  is  the  name  of  Arthemise 
Bouligny,  the  daughter  of  Gustave  and  Octavie 
Fortier  (daughter  of  Edmond  Fortier  and  grand- 
daughter of  Colonel  Michel  Fortier,  who  was  an 
officer  in  the  regiment  of  Don  Francisco).  She 
married  one  of  the  great  American  financiers  and 
merchants  of  New  Orleans,  Albert  Baldwin,  and  for 
years  reigned  as  a  leader  in  the  social  world  by  virtue 
of  her  great  beauty  and  vivacious  mind.  She  it 
was  who  collected  from  the  many  treasuries  of  her 
large  and  scattered  family  the  numerous  docu- 
ments and  letters  that  form  the  imposing  genea- 
logical record  of  her  family.  She  had  them  tran- 
scribed and  opened  them  to  the  Louisiana  Historical 
Society,  of  which  her  cousin,  Alcee  Fortier,  was 
President.  The  collection  descended  by  inheritance 
at  her  death  to  her  son,  Henry  F.  Baldwin,  and  are 
now  in  the  possession  of  his  widow  (born  a  Vainin).* 

*  By  a  curious  historical  coincidence,  the  Vairin  family  trace 
their  ancestral  line  back  to  the  same  Claude  de  Coulange,  Seigneur 
de  Bustance,  who  married  into  the  family  of  the  great  Chancellor 
d'  Aguesseau,  and  was  therefore  a  connection  of  Madame  de  S6vign6. 
The  history  of  this  interesting  (Vairin)  family,  although  not  relating 
to  Louisiana,  is  omitted  here  with  sincere  regret  and  only  for  the 
reason  that  the  prescribed  limits  of  the  book  do  not  permit  its  insertion. 


BOULIGNY  301 

Two  other  names  are  inscribed  in  memory  to  the 
credit  of  the  family — not  in  its  historical  annals  but 
soaring  above  in  the  blue  sky  of  art:  Corinne,  the 
exquisite  Spanish  brunette,  perfect  in  witchery  and 
grace,  who  conferred  upon  the  city  the  joy  of  a 
voice  that  it  might  well  glory  in  and  that  it  did 
glory  in.  Such  was  its  transcendant  beauty  and  gift 
of  exhilaration  that,  in  her  day,  it  was  said  as  a 
truth  and  so  believed,  that  those  who  heard  her 
forgot  life  itself.  Before  her  notes,  sorrow  took 
flight  and  mourning  dropped  its  black.  She  was  the 
daughter  of  Alfred  who,  it  may  be  recalled,  was 
mortally  injured  in  the  tragic  accident  that  befell 
the  old  Orleans  Opera  House,  when  on  a  gala  night 
the  crowded  balcony  fell,  crushing  all  who  were 
seated  beneath.  Her  mother  was  a  Pitot;  she  had, 
therefore,  the  best  parentage  for  talent  and  beauty 
the  city  afforded.  She  married,  in  the  height  of  her 
youth  and  fame,  James  Nott,  who  died  before 
either  had  faded.  She  has  moved  from  her  native 
city  to  live  with  her  son  in  the  State  of  Georgia. 

As  if  to  prove  the  richness  of  the  vintage  of  the 
good  family  vine,  there  soared  almost  simultaneously 
in  the  blue  above  another  songster,  another 
Bouligny — ''Lucie.''  She  was  grave,  fair  and 
blonde,  ethereal,  with  a  smile  of  angelic  sweetness, 
like  de  Musset's  ^'Lucie''  (to  those  who  knew  their 
de  Musset) : 

".    .    .    .    Elle  etait  pale  et  blonde 

Jamais  deux  yeux  plus  doux  n'ont  du  ciel  le  plus  pur 

Sond^  la  profondeur  et  reflechi  I'azur." 

She  had  a  voice,  in  truth,  such  as  the  poet  called 
for,  ''that  sounded  like  enchanted  wine  loosening 


302  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

her  notes  in  a  silver  shower/^  a  voice  that  came  not 
down  to  earth  or  mortality  but  lifted  the  hearer 
above  to  heaven  and  immortality.  Her  art  came 
from  Italy  who  received  it,  as  we  know,  from 
heaven.  It  was  given  her  by  the  matchless  artist 
who  in  the  last  century  was  sent  to  the  music-loving 
city  by  a  music-loving  providence.  Calve,  she 
was  called  in  her  youth,  when  she  was  the  pupil 
and  friend  of  Rossini  and  the  ''first  prize''  of  the 
Paris  Conservatoire.  For  a  lifetime,  to  the  verge 
of  her  old  age,  she  was  loved,  honored  and  almost 
worshipped  in  New  Orleans  as  a  very  goddess  of 
lyric  music.  To  Lucie,  one  of  her  favorite  pupils, 
she  gave  of  what  she  had  received  in  good  measure, 
pressed  down  and  running  over,  and  the  good 
scholar  has  passed  on  the  good  measure  of  art 
to  her  own  pupils,  maintaining  the  standard  of 
perfect  singing  among  the  Creoles  with  the  same 
devotion  that  the  standard  of  old  customs  and 
manners  is  maintained. 

Lucie  was  the  daughter  of  Dominique  and  of 
his  wife,  Celestine  Conway.  There  were  seven 
daughters,  all  beautiful  and  talented:  Lucie, 
Anna,  Lizette,  Jeanne,  Lea,  Angele,  Marie,  all 
educated  with  finished  care  and  moving  with 
dignity  through  the  life  before  them — a  life  from 
which  their  father  had  departed,  shorn  of  the 
fortune  which  had  been  his  of  right  and  which  should 
have  been  his  daughters.  Jeanne  married  Oscar 
Crosby — recently  a  member  of  the  diplomatic 
family  of  President  Wilson.  His  beautiful  daughter 
is  now  the  wife  of  Count  Caracciolo.  Lucie  married 
Louis  Arnauld,  a  young  lawyer  of  prominence,  who 
could  have  boasted,  but  never  did,  of  his  descent 


BOULIGNY  303 

from  the  great  Arnauld  of  France.  He  died  in  the 
full  career  of  his  professional  and  domestic  happiness, 
leaving  his  young  children  to  the  care  of  his  wife. 

Madame  Arnauld 's  beautiful  voice  faded  and 
passed  away,  but  the  artist  remained  and  the  woman 
and  the  mother ;  a  sample  through  the  fading,  w^earing 
years  of  the  fadeless  brocade  of  which  old  court 
dresses  and  Creole  families  were  made.  In  her  Httle 
home  that,  despite  its  American  neighborhood  and 
American  building,  recalls  vaguely  the  little  homes 
that  were  first  built  in  the  city,  w^here  the  front  door 
opens  without  ceremony  into  the  little  garden  and 
that  into  the  street;  where  the  front  room  is  the 
salon — such  a  salon  as  Don  Francisco  must  have 
glanced  into  as  he  hurried  through  the  streets  of 
h^ew  Orleans  for  the  first  time,  bearing  despatches 
to  Aubry  from  O'Reilly;  when  his  glowing  eyes 
sought  through  the  open  windows  a  sight  of  the 
lovely  Creole  faces  awaiting  with  anxiety  the  news 
that  he  was  bringing.  The  sight  of  just  the  same 
lovely  faces  would  be  granted  him  now  through 
the  open  window  of  his  great-great-granddaughter. 
There  was  no  music  in  the  houses  then,  but  now  he 
could  have  heard  voices  and  music  of  the  kind  that 
vibrates  in  the  heart  and  memory  ever  afterwards. 
No  soft-footed  black  slaves  bear  around  silver 
salvers  of  refreshing  drinks;  but  the  traditional 
anisette  is  passed,  nevertheless,  in  their  minute 
glasses,  in  the  true  old  Creole  fashion. 

And  could  Don  Francisco  but  have  peeped  in  one 
December  night  of  the  year  1918!  Could  Louise 
d'Auberville  but  have  looked  with  him  on  the  little 
salon,  when  the  gay  French  conversation  suddenly 
stopped,  and  the  singing,  while  through  the  door 


304  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

from  the  street  entered  a  young  soldier  in  uniform, 
wearing  the  ^^fourragere,"  handsome  of  face,  perfect 
of  figure,  his  breast  covered  with  decorations,  blush- 
ing, and  childishly  shy  of  meeting  strangers  after  four 
years  of  war — Edgar!  Edgar  Bouligny!  Ah, 
he  had  made  his  city  and  his  people  proud!  The 
first  American  to  enlist  in  the  Foreign  Legion,  the 
hero  of  its  heroes,  his  picture  and  his  record  in  all 
newspapers!  Covered  with  wounds  as  with  decora- 
tions, and  not  yet  twenty-three!  It  was  a  moment 
of  triumph  for  the  Bouhgny  family.  The  banners  of 
France  and  America  waved  then  in  all  hearts  in  that 
little  salon,  and  down  the  generations  leading  back 
to  Spain,  Spanish  banners  must  have  been  waving, 
too,  in  salute  to  Edgar  Bouligny. 

He  is  the  son  of  the  Edgar  who  was  the  only 
brother  of  Lucie  Arnauld  who  married  Lucie  Delery 
des  Islets,  of  the  great  family  of  Chauvin  who  gave 
the  hero,  Nicholas  de  Lafreniere,  to  Louisiana.  The 
heart  wishes  that  he,  too,  could  have  stood  with  Don 
Francisco  and  Louise  d'Auberville  to  see  their 
descendant ! 


CHAPTER  XIX 
ALMONASTER 

DON  ANDRES  ALMONASTER  Y  ROXASwas 
a  native  of  Mayrena  in  Andalusia,  Spain.  His 
parents  were  Don  Miguel  Jose  Almonaster  and 
Donna  Maria  Joanna  de  Estrada  y  Roxas,  both  of 
noble  birth  and  ancient  lineage.  He  came  to  Louis- 
iana in  the  suite  of  O'Reilly  and  was  made  Colonel 
of  the  Provincial  troops;  and  he  was  afterwards 
appointed  King's  Notary,  or  Notary  Public. 

In  1769,  when  the  new  Spanish  Government  w^as 
inaugurated  by  O'Reilly,  he  was  given  the  office  of 
Alferez  Real  or  Royal  Standard  Bearer,  a  merely 
honorary  office  with  no  other  function  assigned  to 
it  but  the  bearing  of  the  royal  standard  by  the 
incumbent  in  great  public  ceremonies.  He  was 
afterwards  invested  with  the  royal  and  distinguished 
Order  of  Carlos  III  (as  described  in  Pontalba's 
letter  to  his  wife).  A  full-length  portrait  of  him  is 
shown  to-day  in  the  Cabildo  at  the  head  of  the  great 
stairway.  A  sturdy,  strong  personality  it  repre- 
sents: shrewd  of  face;  standing  erect  as  a  royal 
standard  bearer  should,  with  his  cocked  hat  under 
his  arm  and  knightly  sword  in  his  hand;  in  court 
dress,  with  the  Royal  Order  on  his  breast;  a  per- 
sonage to  command  respect;  self-important  and  self- 
sufficient.  He  was,  nevertheless,  not  more  important 
to  himself  than  he  became  to  the  city  of  his  adoption. 
He  was  the  princely  benefactor  of  New  Orleans 

305 


306  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

during  its  colonial  period  and,  in  truth,  has  reaped  a 
reward  in  the  shape  of  immortality  that  other  and 
even  more  princely  benefactors  of  greater  cities 
might  envy. 

The  beginning  of  the  making  of  his  great  fortune 
has  never  been  made  clear,  although  suspicion  has 
not  been  idle  in  presenting  many  origins  for  it. 
What  is  really  known  is  that  O'Reilly  granted  to 
the  city  in  the  King's  name  the  ground  on  both 
sides  of  the  Place  d'Armes,  from  the  Levee  to 
Chartres  Street,  having  a  frontage  of  three  hundred 
and  thirty-six  feet  on  the  Place  and  a  depth  of  eighty- 
four  feet,  and  that  Almonaster  erected  upon  this 
ground  a  row  of  brick  buildings  that  he  rented  most 
profitably  for  stores  with  residences  above.  He 
became  also  the  owner  of  a  large  brickyard  which  he 
worked  with  his  own  slaves,  and  he  soon  was  known 
as  possessing  great  wealth.  When  in  1779  a  terrible 
hurricane  swept  away  the  humble  hospital  building, 
which  the  sailor,  Jean  Louis,  had  founded  in  1737, 
Almonaster  had  another  one  erected  with  a  chapel 
at  the  large  cost  (for  that  day)  of  one  hundred  and 
fourteen  thousand  dollars;  and  in  1787  he  donated  a 
chapel  to  the  Ursuline  Convent, 

In  1788,  when  the  greatest  conflagration  the  city 
has  ever  suffered  destroyed  the  parish  church, 
built  in  1724,  Don  Andres  made  an  offer  to  the 
Cabildo  to  rebuild  it  on  a  grander  scale  at  his  own 
expense.  Such  an  offer  meets  only  one  answer.  The 
reconstruction  was  at  once  begun,  and  in  two  years 
the  Cathedral  was  completed,  such  as  it  stands 
to-day,  or  would  stand  had  not  the  rude  hands  of 
ignorant  architects  in  1850  sought  to  improve  and 
embellish   it.      On    Christmas   of    1794,    the    new 


ALMONASTER  307 

Cathedral  was  dedicated  with  great  pomp,  according 
to  the  description  of  the  ceremonies  left  by  Don 
Joaquin  de  Portillo,  the  rector  of  the  parish,  who 
records  that  it  owes  its  existence  to  the  zeal  and 
piety  of  Don  Andres  Almonaster.  'Vho  is  almost 
without  an  equal. '^ 

''At  the  opening  of  the  ceremony,''  so  proceeds 
our  record,  ''our  illustrious  benefactor  presented  the 
keys  of  the  church  to  the  Governor  (Carondelet) 
who  then  handed  them  over  to  me.''  The  fame  of 
Almonaster,  says  the  latest  historian  of  the  Cathe- 
dral, Chambon,  did  not  fail  to  give  offense  to  some 
less  fortunate  or  less  generous  than  he,  who  misrepre- 
sented his  intentions  and  suspected  him  of  ambition. 
But  former  Governor  Miro,  his  friend,  then  in 
Spain,  referred  the  matter  to  the  King,  who  speedily 
put  an  end  to  such  talk  and  rewarded  the  generosity 
of  Almonaster  as  became  his  merit.  The  King  wrote, 
"He  is  authorized  to  occupy  the  most  prominent  seat 
in  the  church,  second  only  to  the  royal  Vice  patron,' 
and  to  receive  the  kiss  of  peace  during  the  celebration 
of  Mass  .  .  .  he  is  to  be  given  loyal  support  and 
aid  in  whatever  he  may  undertake,  is  to  be  treated 
in  future  with  deferential  regard  as  one  who  has 
found  grace  near  my  royal  person  {grato  a  me  real 
persona),  by  the  achievement  of  great  works, 
generously  drawing  upon  his  own  resources  for  the 
construction  of  the  parochial  church,  the  Ursuline 
convent,  the  charity  hospital  and  the  government 
buildings  of  New  Orleans;"  signed:  "El  ReyJ^ 

The  government  buildings  referred  to  by  the  King 

Note. — "In  and  Around  the  Old  St.  Louis  Cathedral,"  by  the 
Rev.  M.  Chambon.     New  Orleans,  1908. 


308  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

are  the  Presbytere  on  the  left  of  the  Cathedral,  now 
used  as  a  part  of  the  State  Museum,  and  on  the 
right  of  the  Cathedral  the  Town  Hall  and  Jail, 
now  given  over  to  the  use  of  the  Louisiana  Historical 
Society,  whose  monthly  meetings  are  held  in  the 
great  Sala  Capitular  of  the  old  Spanish  Cabildo,  the 
venerable  and  venerated  room  in  which  the  ceremony 
of  both  the  transfers  of  the  colony  took  place  and 
its  final  cession  by  France  to  the  United  States. 
It  has  suffered  less  at  the  hands  of  restorers  than 
has  the  Cabildo,  and  is  a  better  example  of  the  fine 
architectural  taste  and  skill  of  its  builder.  Don 
Almonaster's  own  slaves  constructed  it  under  his 
supervision.  They  prepared  the  timber  for  it  and 
forged  the  iron  work  used  in  it,  but  his  was  the  plan 
and  his  the  genius  for  its  execution.  All  honor  be 
to  him! 

At  sixty,  Don  Andres  was  in  station  the  highest 
individual  in  the  city  and,  indeed,  in  the  province,  by 
virtue  of  his  great  wealth  and  wonderful  fame  as 
a  benefactor.  But  he  was  not  married.  This  he 
accompUshed  also,  satisfying,  as  in  his  buildings,  no 
mean  ambition.  He  sought  and  obtained  the  hand 
of  the  beautiful  sixteen-year-old  Louise  de  la  Ronde, 
the  daughter  of  the  Marquis  de  la  Ronde,  a  spoiled 
and  petted  belle.  Society  smiled  and  even  laughed 
and  in  fact  never  ceased  to  play  with  its  wits  upon 
the  (to  society)  ill-assorted  couple.  But  he  laughs 
best  who  laughs  last,  and  Louise  de  la  Ronde,  the 
richest  woman  in  the  city  and  the  foremost  by  virtue 
of  the  official  dignity  and  solid  worth  of  her  good 
husband,  could  smile  and  laugh  long  after  it  at  the 
best  of  her  critics. 

De  Pontalba  sent  to  his  wife  in  Spain  many  a 


ALMONASTER  309 

sarcastic  reference  to  her  and  to  her  entertainments; 
nevertheless  he  was  pleased  to  marry  his  son  to  the 
daughter  that  blessed  the  Almonaster  marriage,  and 
though  he  squabbled  with  the  old  Spaniard  over 
bargains  about  brick  and  building  contracts,  still 
he  indulged  in  no  feehng  of  estrangement  from  him. 
The  benefactor  of  the  city  died  three  years  after  the 
completion  of  his  Cathedral  and  its  pompous  conse- 
cration, in  the  seventy-third  year  of  his  age,  while 
his  adored  daughter,  Micaela,  was  still  in  infancy. 
The  tragedy  of  his  life  was  that  he  died  so  suddenly 
that  it  was  impossible  to  administer  to  him  the  last 
sacraments  of  the  church.  His  tomb  had  been  pre- 
pared for  him  by  his  grateful  beneficiaries  at  the 
foot  of  the  altar  of  the  Sacred  Heart  in  the  Cathedral, 
but,  according  to  a  tradition  full  of  pathos,  he  left 
instructions  to  place  his  body  in  the  cemetery  outside, 
as  he  felt  unworthy  of  the  honor  intended  for  him 
and  felt  that  he  deserved  no  more  than  the  humblest 
Christian  in  the  parish.  It  was  done  as  he  prayed, 
and  only  after  a  probationary  period,  as  it  were, 
outside,  was  he  conveyed  inside  the  Cathedral  to 
the  vault  covered  by  the  slab  that  to-day  bears  his 
coat  of  arms  and  the  record  of  his  life,  titles  and 
services.  The  carved  letters,  though  almost  effaced 
by  the  tread  of  many  generations,  are  still  visible. 
His  epitaph  is  written  in  Spanish,  which,  translated, 
is  as  follows: 

Here  lie  the  remains 

of 

Don  Andres  Almonaster  y  Roxas 

A  Native  of  Mayrena 

In  the  Kingdom  of  Andalusia 

He  died  in  the  City  of  New  Orleans 

On  the  26th  day  of  April,  1798 


310  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Being  73  years  of  age 
A  Knight  of  the  Royal  and  Distinguished 

Order  of  Charles  III 

Colonel  of  the  MiHtia  of  this  department 

Alderman  and  Royal  Lieutenant  of  this  Corporation 

Founder  and  Donor  of  this  Holy  Cathedral 

Founder  of  the  Royal  Hospital  of 

St.  Charles  and  of  its  Church 

Founder  of  the  Hospital  for  Lepers 

Founder  of  the  Ursuhne  Convent 

Founder  of  the  School  for  the  Education  of  Girls 

Founder  of  the  Court  House 

All  of  which  he  had  built  at  his  own  expense 

In  this  City 

Requiescat  in  Pace 

His  wife  and  daughter  inherited  his  great  fortune 
which  measured  above  any  fortune  hitherto  known 
in  the  city,  but  it  brought  them  only  the  enjoyment 
of  wealth,  not  happiness.  Micaela,  when  seventeen, 
was  married  to  the  young  Celestin  de  Pontalba,  son 
of  the  distinguished  and  aristocratic  Baron  de 
Pontalba.  The  match  was  considered  a  perfect  one 
at  the  time;  and  was  called  the  most  important 
marriage  that  ever  took  place  in  New  Orleans.  It 
turned  out,  however,  calamitous  for  both  parties 
to  it. 

Madame  Almonaster,  after  her  daughter's  mar- 
riage, bestowed  herself  and  her  fortune  upon  the 
young  French  Consul  stationed  in  the  city,  M. 
Castillon,  a  man  much  younger  than  she;  for  which 
infringement  of  good  taste,  as  it  was  considered, 
she  was  made  the  victim  of  a  charivari  greater  than 
ever  known  before  in  the  city,  and  the  like  of  which 
has  never  been  attempted  since.  For  three  days 
the  unfortunate  couple  were  chased  by  the  truly 
infernal  racket  of  bells,  horns,  drums  and  every 


ALMON ASTER  311 

noise-producing  instrument  available.  They  tried 
every  avenue  of  escape  in  vain.  A  stranger,  arriving 
in  the  city  at  the  time,  describes  the  wild  excitement 
that  prevailed;  the  streets  were  blocked,  all  traffic 
was  suspended  and,  in  short,  the  life  of  the  populace 
was  given  over  to  tormenting  Madame  Castillon 
until  she  capitulated  and  paid  the  ransom  exacted 
for  her  marriage. 

Even  the  sedate  Governor  Claiborne  pauses  in  a 
letter  to  President  Monroe,  March,  1804,  to  mention 
it. 

".  ,  .  The  young  and  giddy  were  engaged  in  a  charivari  at 
the  expense  of  an  old  widow"  (she  could  not  have  passed  her  mid- 
forties)  "who  has  lately  married  a  young  man  ...  a  Madame 
Don  Andres  Almonaster,  whose  annual  income  is  about  forty 
thousand  dollars.  The  young  men  are  determined  to  persecute  the 
married  pair  until  they  agree  to  give  a  splendid  fete  to  the  genteel 
part  of  society  and  one  thousand  dollars  to  the  poor  of  the  city. 
It  is  expected  that  these  terms  will  be  agreed  to." 

A  passing  stranger  describes  what  he  witnessed: 

".  .  .  Charivaries  are  still  practised.  They  consist  in  mob- 
bing the  house  of  a  widow  when  she  marries,  and  they  (the  mob) 
demand  a  public  donation  as  a  gift.  When  Mme.  Don  Andre  was 
married  she  had  to  compromise  by  giving  three  thousand  dollars 
in  solid  coin.  On  such  occasions  the  mob  are  ludicrously  disguised. 
In  her  case  there  were  effigies  of  her  late  and  present  husbands  in 
the  exhibition  drawn  in  a  cart  .  .  .  the  former  husband  in  a 
coffin,  the  widow  represented  by  a  living  person  .  .  .  sits  near 
it.  The  house  .  .  .  mobbed  by  the  people  of  the  town  vocifera- 
ting and  shouting  .  .  .  hundreds  on  horseback;  many  in  disguises 
and  masks,  and  all  with  some  kind  of  discordant  and  loud  music 
such  as  old  kettles,  shovels  and  tongs  and  clanging  metals  can 
strike  out.  Everybody  looks  waggish,  merry  and  pleased.  Very 
genteel  men  can  be  recognized  in  the  melee;  all  civil  authority  and 
rule  seems  laid  aside.  .  .  .  This  affair,  as  an  extreme  case,  lasted 
three  days,  and  brought  in  crowds  from  the  country.    It  was  made 


312  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

extreme  because  the  second  husband  was  an  unpopular  man  of 
humble  name,  and  she  was  supposed  to  have  done  unworthily. 
.  .  .  The  whole  sum  was  honorably  given  to  the  orphans  of 
the  place.  ...  At  a  later  period,  the  great  la^vyer  Edward 
Livingstone  (who  married  the  beautiful  Louise  Moreau  de  Lassy 
tiee  d'Avezac  de  Castera)  received  a  charivari,  but  on  this  occa- 
sion the  married  pair  came  out  promptly  to  the  balcony  and  thanked 
the  populace  for  their  attention,  and  asked  them  to  walk  into  the 
courtyard  and  partake  of  the  good  cheer  provided.  The  compli- 
ment was  received  with  acclamations  and  good  wishes  in  return 
were  made  for  many  years  of  happiness  to  the  married  pair,  and 
the  throng  dispersed  in  a  good  humor."  Note — Diary  of  John  F. 
Watkins,  quoted  in  "History  of  Louisiana,"  by  A\c6e  Fortier. 

Madame  Castillon,  with  her  husband,  shortly 
afterwards  took  her  departure  for  France,  where 
she  joined  her  daughter.  She  died  in  France  in 
1827  and  was  buried  there. 


CHAPTER  XX 
DE  LA  RONDE 

PIERRE  DENIS  DE  LA  RONDE,  the  father  of 
Madame  Ahiionaster,  was  born  and  baptized  in 
Quebec  in  1726.  He  was  the  son  of  Louis  Denis, 
Sieur  de  la  Ronde,  Captain  of  a  company  in  the 
Marine,  and  ChevaHer  of  the  Order  of  St.  Louis. 
His  mother  was  Dame  Louise  Cartier  de  Lotbiniere; 
his  godfather  was  Pierre  de  Rigaud  de  Vaudreuil, 
who  afterwards  became  Governor  of  Louisiana. 

The  line  of  the  family  descends  from  Simon  Denis, 
Seigneur  de  la  Trinity,  grandson  of  Mathurin  Denis, 
who  was  married  twice,  his  first  wife  being  Jeanne 
du  Breuille,  sister  of  the  Procureur  du  Roi  in  Tours 
in  1661.  From  them  descend  the  Louisiana  branch 
of  the  family,  headed  by  Pierre  Denis  de  la  Ronde. 

By  his  second  wife,  Frangoise  du  Tertre,  he  had 
twelve  children,  all  living  at  his  death.  They, 
according  to  the  family  genealogy  copied  from  cer- 
tified documents,  filled  important  positions  in  Tours, 
where  they  married  into  the  families  of  nobility. 
Their  arms  are  still  to  be  seen  on  a  great  house  in 
old  Tours  facing  the  public  square:  they  consist  of 
a  bunch  of  grapes  on  a  field  ^ 'gules'^  supported  by 
two  stags,  and  they  are  also  carved  in  the  nave  of  a 
little  chapel  near  one  of  the  gates  of  the  city.  Their 
tomb  is  near  the  altar  of  the  Virgin;  it  is  of  stone 
with  the  arms  of  the  family  applied  in  brass.  Their 
patent  of  nobility  was  accorded  the  family  in  Quebec, 
in  1691. 

313 


314  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

When  Pierre  Denis  de  la  Ronde  came  to  Louisiana 
is  not  definitely  known.  The  first  mention  of  his 
name  occurs  among  the  officers  under  Bienville 
during  the  early  days  of  the  settlement  of  the 
colony.  In  1769,  the  Chevalier  de  la  Ronde,  retired 
Lieutenant  of  Infantry,  signed  the  petition  addressed 
to  the  Superior  Council  asking  the  expulsion  of  the 
Spanish  frigate  that,  Bince  the  retirement  of  Ulloa, 
had  remained  stationed  in  the  river,  ''a  constant 
menace  and  source  of  vexation  to  the  inhabitants 
of  the  city." 

He  married  Madeleine  Broutin  about  1727.  She 
was  the  daughter  of  the  royal  engineer  under  Bien- 
ville who  was  connected  by  marriage  with  the  great 
families  of  Marigny  and  de  Pontalba.  She  was  also 
the  widow  (the  second  wife)  of  de  Lino  de  Chalmette. 
Their  home,  undoubtedly  the  most  beautiful  planta- 
tion home  in  Louisiana  at  that  day,  was  called 
Versailles.  It  lay  below  the  city  at  the  distance  of  a 
pleasant  drive.  Its  picturesque  ruins  can  be  seen 
to-day.  They  recall  vividly  what  the  place  must 
have  been  in  the  past,  and  speak  eloquently  of  the 
refinement  and  elegance  of  the  family  who  built  it 
and  lived  there. 

The  beautiful  Louise  de  la  Ronde,  who  became 
the  wife  of  Almonaster,  was  born  there,  and  as  a 
child  played  under  the  shade  of  the  magnificent 
avenue  of  oaks  which  still  defy  the  aging  of  time. 
When  the  famous  invasion  of  Louisiana  by  the 
English  took  place  and  New  Orleans  was  threatened 
with  conquest,  de  la  Ronde  was  a  Colonel  in  the 
Louisiana  Militia  and,  as  such,  in  the  forefront  of 
all  the  measures  of  defense.     When  the  English 


DE  LA  RONDE  315 

effected  a  landing  from  the  lake  in  the  rear  of  the 
city  and  stole  up  a  little  bayou  that  brought  them  to 
the  plantation  canal,  and  so  to  the  Viller6  place,  the 
de  la  Ronde  plantation  was  one  of  the  five  planta- 
tions that  lay  in  the  way  of  their  advance  to  the  city. 
When  Gabriel  Viller6,  as  may  be  remembered,  made 
his  dashing  escape  from  his  British  guards,  he  sped 
to  the  next  plantation,  de  la  Ronde's,  and  there 
found  Colonel  de  la  Ronde,  who  himself  had  just 
rushed  in  from  his  command  at  Chef  Menteur  on 
the  lake  with  the  news  of  the  British  landing.  The 
two  officials  jumped  in  a  skiff  at  the  river  bank, 
crossed  the  stream  and,  seizing  horses  on  the  other 
side,  spurred  to  the  city  where,  covered  with  mud 
and  breathless  from  their  ride,  they  made  their 
report  to  General  Jackson,  surrounded  by  his 
aides,  that  ''the  British  were  encamped  on  the  soil 
of  Louisiana"!  To  repeat  the  old,  old  anecdote 
which  can  never  be  too  often  repeated  in  the  estima- 
tion of  Louisianians — at  the  close  of  the  report, 
the  General  drew  up  his  figure  to  its  full  height  and 
with  an  eye  of  fire  and  an  emphatic  blow  with  his 
clenched  fist  upon  the  table,  swore  his  oath:  ''By 
the  Eternal,  they  shall  not  sleep  on  our  soil;"  and 
turning  to  his  aides,  "Gentlemen,  the  British  are 
below;  we  must  fight  them  to-night." 

The  Chalmette  plantation  has  gained  the  honor 
of  naming  the  great  victory,  but  the  attack  and  the 
retreat  were  made  through  the  de  la  Ronde  place; 
and  many  a  gallant  British  officer  and  soldier 
breathed  his  last  under  the  soft  shade  of  the  old 
oaks  whose  great  trunks  still  carry  the  scars  of 
cannon  balls  and  even  the  balls  themselves.    De  la 


316  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Ronde  fought  at  the  side  of  General  Coffee  on  his 
own  land.  There  is  a  tradition*  in  the  family  that 
it  was  de  la  Ronde  who  overheard  the  British  officers 
giving  the  password  for  the  night,  ^'Beauty  and 
Booty/'  and  that  he  conveyed  it  to  the  American 
Army,  thus  furnishing  them  with  the  deadliest  motive 
that  fired  their  fury  against  the  invaders. 

The  son  of  Colonel  de  la  Ronde,  Pierre  Denis  de  la 
Ronde,  was  born  in  New  Orleans  in  1762,  married 
Eulalie  Guerbois,  daughter  of  Louis  Alexandre 
Guerbois  and  EHzabeth  Trepagnier:  he  died  at 
Versailles  plantation  in  1824.  He  had  one  son,  who 
had  no  children;  the  name  is  therefore  extinct. 
The  nine  daughters  all  married  and  have  left  children. 
Eulalie  married  a  Hoa.  Celeste  and  Heloise  became 
the  first  and  second  wives  of  Maunsell  White  of 
Kentucky.  Felicie  married  a  Jorda.  Amelie  mar- 
ried a  Forestier.  Other  daughters  married  into  the 
Ducros  and  the  Viller6  families;  and  another  one 
became  the  wife  of  General  Lacoste,  whose  planta- 
tion adjoined  Versailles.  Eliza  White,  the  daughter 
of  Celeste  de  la  Ronde,  the  first  wife  of  Maunsell 
White,  was  the  mother  of  the  Hon.  Cuthbert  Bullitt 
of  Louisville,  Kentucky.  Heloise  de  la  Ronde,  the 
second  wife  of  Maunsell  White,  had  three  children; 
Clara,  Maunsell  and  Annie.  Clara  married  the  late 
Carl  Kohn  of  New  Orleans  and  had  one  child, 
Eveline,  who  married  the  well-known  merchant  of 
New  Orleans,  Victor  Meyer.  They  had  six  daughters : 
Hilda,  Clara  (Mrs.  McCaleb),  Eveline,  Mildred, 
Lenore  (Mrs.  John  Hickey),  Virginia.  Two  sons 
died  in  infancy.    Maunsell  White,  Jr.,  married  Eliza- 

*  Affirmed  also  by  Vincent  Nolte  in  his  "Fifty  Years  in  Both 
Hemispheres." 


DE  LA  RONDE  317 

beth  Porter  Bradford ;  their  children  are :  Lucy  (Mrs. 
C.  P.  Wilkinson);  Mary  (Mrs.  A.  R.  Brousseau); 
Carl  White  married  Mary  Mitchell  of  Cincinnati 
(seven  children) ;  Sidney  Johnson,  married  to  Ellen 
Tobin  of  New  Orleans ;  EUzabeth,  married  to  Edwin 
Rodd  of  New  Orleans ;  Anna,  married  to  Thomas  H. 
Anderson  of  New  Orleans;  Annie  White,  married  to 
Hugh  Kennedy, 


CHAPTER  XXI 

CHALMETTE 

T^HE  ancestry  of  Chalmette,  a  name  of  glorious 
-*-  memories  in  New  Orleans,  has  been  traced  as 
follows:  Claude  Martin  Sieur  de  Lino;  married 
Antoinette  Chalmette  of  St.  Nazaire.  She  died  and 
was  buried  in  Quebec  in  1731.  Their  son,  Mathurin 
Frangois  Martin,  Sieur  de  Lino,  a  Councillor  of  the 
Sovereign  Council  of  Quebec,  was  born  and  baptized 
in  Quebec  in  1657,  and  married  Catherine  Noland, 
daughter  of  the  Chevalier  Pierre  Noland  and 
Catherine  Houart.  Their  son,  Frangois  Martin 
de  Lino,  Attorney-General  of  the  King,  married,  in 
1712,  Angehque  Chartier  de  Lotbiniere,  daughter  of 
Ren6  Louis  Chartier  de  Lotbiniere,  Councillor  and 
Lieutenant-General  in  Canada. 

The  Chartier  de  Lotbniere  family,  it  would  be 
inexcusable  not  to  mention  it,  belonged  to  the  old 
French  family  which  bore  the  famous  poet,  Alain 
Chartier,  famous  not  only  for  his  poetry  but  for  the 
pretty  anecdote  about  him  which  has  survived  and 
which  outshines  his  poetry.  It  is  said  that  he  was 
kissed  by  a  Queen  of  France  while  asleep  (Marguerite 
of  Scotland,  wife  of  the  Dauphin,  afterwards  Louis 
XI;  one  of  the  ^^ three  Marguerites"  of  French  his- 
tory.) Her  attendant  ladies  remarking  to  her  that 
he  was  the  ugliest  man  in  France,  '^I  am  not  kissing 
the  man,"  she  answered,  ''but  the  lips  from  which  so 
many  beautiful  words  have  come." 

Frangois  de  Lino  died  in  1721  and  was  buried  in 
the  church  in  Quebec.    His  widow  remarried.    Her 

318 


CHALMETTE  319 

children  from  her  marriage  with  de  Lino  were: 
Marie  Angelique,  Ignace  Frangois  Pierre  and  Louis 
Xavier,  de  Lino  de  Chahnette,  who  was  born  and 
baptized  in  Quebec  in  1720.  He  became  an  officer 
in  the  troops  of  the  Marine  and  was  commandant 
in  the  Arkansas  country  in  1751.  He  is  mentioned 
by  Michel  de  la  RouvilHere,  the  commissary  under 
Vaudreuil,  in  an  official  communication  as  ^'M. 
de  Lino,  Lieutenant,  a  relative  of  M.  de  Vaudreuil," 
who  had  left  his  post  without  permission  and  had 
come  to  New  Orleans,  but  who  was  sent  back  at 
once  by  M.  de  Vaudreuil  who,  however,  did  not 
inflict  any  punishment  upon  him,  ' 'because  there 
is  no  disciphne  here."  He  married,  in  New  Orleans, 
Madeleine  Marguerite  Broutin,  daughter  of  Ignace 
Frangois  Broutin,  a  Captain  of  Engineers  in  Louis- 
iana and  commandant  of  the  post  at  Natchez. 
Her  mother  was  Marie  Madeleine  Lemaire,  the 
widow  of  Philippe  de  Marigny.  When  Louis 
Xavier  de  Lino  died  in  1755  his  widow  married,  the 
following  year,  Pierre  Denis  de  la  Ronde,  a  Chevalier 
of  the  Order  of  St.  Louis,  and  son  of  Louise  Chartier 
de  Lotbiniere.  From  this  marriage  there  issued 
Louise  de  la  Ronde,  who  married  Don  Andres 
Almonaster,  and  Pierre  Denis  de  la  Ronde,  who 
married  Eulalie  Guerbois. 

Madeleine  Josephine  de  Lino  de  Chalmette,  the 
daughter  of  Louis  Xavier  de  Lino  and  Madeleine 
Broutin,  born  in  New  Orleans  in  1752.  She  was 
married,  in  1777,  to  Frangois  de  Verges  de  St. 
Sauveur,  a  retired  officer,  the  son  of  Bernard  de 
Verges,  Chevaher  of  St.  Louis  and  of  Dame  Marie 
Therese  Pinot.    She  died  in  New  Orleans  in  1722. 

Louis  Xavier  de  Lino  de  Chalmette,  son  of  Louis 


320  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Xavier  de  Lino  and  Madeleine  Broutin,  born  in 
1753,  married  in  New  Orleans  Adelaide  Fazende,  the 
daughter  of  Gabriel  Fazende  and  Charlotte  de 
Verges.  Ignace  de  Lino  de  Chalmette,  on  whose 
plantation  the  Battle  of  New  Orleans  was  fought, 
was  the  posthumous  son  of  Louis  Xavier  de  Lino 
and  Madeleine  Broutin.  He  married  Victoire  de 
Vaugines,  daughter  of  the  Marquis  Etienne  de 
Vaugines,  Lieutenant-Colonel  in  a  regiment  of  the 
line  and  a  Chevalier  of  St.  Louis  and  of  Dame 
Antoinette  P^lagie  Petit  de  Livilliers.  He  died  in 
1815;  his  widow  in  1836. 

Chalmette  figures  in  de  Pontalba^s  letters  to  his 
wife,  it  may  be  remembered,  as  returning  from  his 
post  in  the  West  with  a  large  fortune  which  de 
Pontalba  looked  upon  with  suspicion  until  he  found 
out  that  it  was  real  and  legitimately  acquired.  He 
came  to  New  Orleans  with  a  large  family;  among 
them  two  young  lady  daughters,  Victoire  and 
Azelie,  very  gay  and  charming,  but  needing  the 
accomplishments  to  be  acquired  in  the  city.* 

*  A  delicate  note  on  miniature  paper  bordered  with  roses  has 
carried  down  the  past  century  the  following  gallant  trite  souvenir 
of  Azelie  when  a  young  lady. 
"To  Mademoiselle  Chalmet,  at  her  Mother's, 

Royal  Street  between  Contti  and  Bienville: 

"The  Domino  of  yesterday  evening  presents  his  compliments  to 
Melle.  Azelie  Chalmet,  and  begs  her  to  have  no  feeling  against  him  if 
he  does  not  make  himself  known.  Circumstances  force  him  to 
this.  Nevertheless,  if  she  is  going  to  the  ball  next  Saturday,  she 
will  be  teased  again  by  a  'rabbit  head,'  who  will  be  the  same  person 
as  last  night.  It  is  useless  for  her  to  seek  to  know  him  by  means 
of  this  note,  for  he  has  changed  his  handwriting. 

"He  wishes  her  all  happiness,  and  will  be  the  first  to  kiss  her 
hand  when  she  steps  aboard  Hymen's  bark. 

"Her  devoted  servant." 

Kindness  of  the  late  J.  W.  Cruzat,  who  holds  the  original. 


CHALMETTE  321 

Chalmette,  looking  for  an  investment  for  his 
money,  was  persuaded  by  Philippe  de  Marigny,  his 
relative  by  marriage,  to  buy  a  plantation  below  the 
city,  presumably  the  very  plantation  upon  which 
the  battle  w^as  fought.  De  Pontalba  advised  against 
the  purchase  and  confided  to  his  wife  that  he  thought 
Philippe  de  Marigny  was  unloading  on  Chalmette  an 
unprofitable  piece  of  property;  but  this  suspicion 
did  not  dawn  upon  the  gallant  Chalmette,  although 
the  plantation  never  proved  a  profitable  investment. 

When  Marigny  died  he  made  Chalmette  the 
guardian  of  his  young  son,  Bernard,  who,  as  he  had 
found  out,  needed  a  strong  hand  to  guide  him. 
Chalmette's  conscientious  interpretation  of  this 
responsibility  and  his  serious  efforts  to  convert  the 
monumental  spendthrift  of  Louisiana  (as  he  turned 
out  to  be)  into  a  thrifty,  sedate  young  gentleman 
have  been  detailed  in  the  life  of  Bernard  Marigny. 
Chalmette  used  to  repeat  to  his  pupil:  *^Get  educa- 
tion— a  man  without  education  is  only  half  a  man.'* 

Until  he  died,  his  life  was  that  of  an  easy-tempered, 
pleasure-loving  sugar  planter,  possessed  of  ample 
means  to  gratify  his  social  tastes.  In  the  Museum 
of  the  Historical  Society  in  the  Cabildo  is  shown  a 
silver  trophy  w^on  by  Chalmette  in  a  shooting  contest 
in  1812,  a  ^'Papegai^^  (so  named  from  the  target,  a 
gaily  painted  bird,  perched  on  a  post),  one  of  the 
popular  sports  of  the  city.  He  was  a  noted  shot  and 
could  hit  a  mark,  firing  back  over  his  shoulder.  In 
the  same  case  with  the  trophy  is  a  collection  of 
pretty  feminine  trifles:  black  lace  veils,  fans  and 
bits  of  jewelry,  collected  from  the  ladies  of  the 
family  to  whom  they  had  descended;  trinkets  at 
which  the  eye  smiles  through  tears.     They  had 


322  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

belonged  to  Madame  Chalmette,  and  as  pretty  as  her 
trinkets  are,  so  is  the  praise  of  her  husband,  that 
although  a  man  loving  pleasure  and  the  ladies,  he 
never  forgot  his  love  for  his  wife. 

When  the  British  Army  made  its  appearance 
below  the  city,  the  Chalmettes  abandoned  their 
home  and  sought  shelter  in  a  small  house  on  Royal 
Street  between  Conti  and  Bienville  Streets,  a  little 
house  that  they  kept  in  the  city  as  a  ^'pied  a  terre^^ 
when  in  town  attending  the  opera  or  balls.  One 
week  after  the  battle,  Chalmette  mounted  his 
horse  and  rode  to  his  plantation.  Nothing  remained 
of  his  home  but  blackened  ruins.  Even  the  oak 
trees  that  surrounded  the  house  were  annihilated. 
It  is  said  in  the  family  that  the  rocket  that  set  fire 
to  the  house  and  buildings  to  destroy  them,  for 
mihtary  reasons,  by  Jackson's  orders,  was  sent  off 
by  a  young  man  of  the  connection.  To  make  his 
ruin  the  more  complete,  Chalmette  had  just  bought 
the  plantation  adjoining  his  intending  to  cultivate  it. 
Without  hope  of  ever  retrieving  his  fortune,  he  turned 
his  horse  homeward.  Three  weeks  after  the  battle, 
two  weeks  after  his  visit  to  the  scene  of  it,  he  died, 
and  was  buried  in  the  St.  Louis  Cemetery. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

CRUZAT 

T^RACING    a    good    family    to   its   genealogical 
-*-    source  is  like  following  a  path  up  a  mountain 
to  its  summit — sure  of  the  prospect  to  be  enjoyed. 

Fray  Garcia  de  Engui,*  in  his  manuscript  history 
of  Navarre,  affirms  that  the  family  of  Cruzat  is  one 
of  the  most  ancient  and  illustrious  of  that  kingdom  ; 
and  Lope  de  Vega,  in  his  ^'Conquest  of  Jerusalem,'' 
makes  mention  of  Don  Pedro  Cruzat  fighting  with 
Don  Ramire,  King  of  Navarre,  and  Godefroi  de 
Bouileon  when  the  holy  city  was  captured.  He 
gained  great  fame  for  himself,  which  he  extended 
by  his  further  exploits  on  the  Euxine  Sea  and  the 
Indian  Ocean. 

A  worthy  descendant  of  Don  Pedro  was  Don 
Aymar  de  Cruzat  who,  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
acquired  lordship  over  many  cities  of  Navarre. 
With  noble  and  knightly  valor,  he  defended  Pam- 
peluna  against  the  Navarrese,  receiving  an  arrow 
wound  in  the  face,  for  which  he  was  rewarded  by 
King  Philip  in  the  year  1279. 

He  had  married  Madeleine  de  Marigny,  of  a 
noble  French  family.  His  one  son,  Raoul  Cruzat, 
married  his  first  cousin,  Blanche  Almoravid,  daughter 

*  Taken,  with  the  kind  permission  of  Mrs.  J.  W.  Cruzat,  from 
the  compilation  made  by  her  late  husband  from  the  authentic  docu- 
ments in  the  family  archives  of  the  Marquis  de  Feria,  all  of  which 
have  been  legally  attested. 

323 


324  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

of  Garcia  Almoravid  and  Violante  Marigny,  in  an 
effort  to  unite  the  rival  houses  of  Cruzat  and 
Almoravid  and  stay  their  bloody  encounters.  Their 
sons,  Berenger  I,  II,  and  III,  maintained  the  fame 
of  the  family  as  fighters  and,  during  the  following 
century,  the  family  rose  to  important  positions  in 
Spain,  enjoying  the  steady  favor  of  the  King,  who 
conferred  on  them  the  highest  decorations  of 
chivalry  and  accorded  the  family  the  privilege  of 
representing  the  nobihty  of  Navarre  and  voting  in 
the  Cortes. 

By  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  the  elder 
branch  became  extinct  and  the  name  of  Cruzat  was 
merged  into  that  of  Gongorra,  the  name  of  the 
marquisat  conferred  on  Jean  Cruzat  in  1695.  To 
the  elder  branch  belong  Don  Luis,  who  became  Grand 
Prior  to  the  Order  of  St.  lago;  Michel,  a  General  in 
the  Spanish  Army  and  a  Knight  of  Calatrava,  who 
died  in  Havana  fighting  against  the  Dutch;  and 
Fray  Martin,  Grand  Master  of  St.  lago,  who  was 
Governor  of  Galicia  and  Viceroy  of  Sicily.  The 
younger  branch  of  the  family,  known  as  Espeleta, 
gave  to  Louisiana  the  family  known  in  New  Orleans 
to-day. 

Francisco  Cruzat,  the  first  of  the  name  in  Louisiana 
and  the  son  of  Balthasar,  w^as  born  in  Tafala,  Spain, 
in  1739.  He  became  a  Captain  of  Grenadiers  and 
came  to  Louisiana  in  the  troops  of  O'Reilly.  Unzaga, 
the  first  Spanish  Governor  after  O'Reilly,  appointed 
him  to  be  Lieutenant-Governor  of  Upper  Louisiana 
(the  Illinois  country),  in  1780.  He  was  promoted  to 
Lieutenant-Colonel  by  Galvez  for  services  rendered 
in  his  campaign  against  the  English,  and  reap- 
pointed to  the  position  of  Lieutenant-Governor  of 


CRUZAT  325 

Upper  Louisiana,  one  of  the  most  important  positions 
in  the  Spanish  colony  in  the  critical  period  of  its 
history  when  French,  English  and  Indians  were  all 
intriguing  against  it. 

Cruzat  married  a  countrywoman,  Nicanora  Ramos 
y  Tibaldo  of  Cartagena,  Spain.  Their  home  was  in 
St.  Louis.  She  was  the  heroine  of  an  adventure 
that  made  a  commotion  in  the  Spanish  colony  and 
came  near  bringing  on  active  hostilities  between 
the  British  and  Spaniards.  With  her  two  little 
sons,  she  was  making  the  return  voyage  from  New 
Orleans  to  St.  Louis  (to  join  her  husband  after  a  visit 
to  the  city)  when  her  boat  was  attacked  at  the 
St.  Francis  River.  According  to  the  report  she  made 
of  the  occurrence,  as  her  boat  was  passing  they  were 
hailed  in  French  by  a  man  who  told  them  that  he 
had  letters  from  Don  Francisco  Cruzat  for  his  wife. 
BeHeving  this  deceitful  pretext,  her  captain  ordered 
the  boat  to  be  stopped  so  as  to  get  the  letters.  As 
soon  as  they  were  near  the  strange  boat  a  rope  was 
fastened  to  them  and  they  were  summoned  to  sur- 
render as  prisoners  of  the  King  of  Great  Britain. 
About  the  same  time  there  came  rushing  out  of  the 
bushes  about  forty  Englishmen,  who  took  posses- 
sion of  the  boat  and  tied  the  passengers  and  rowers. 
While  they  were  tying  the  rest,  Jayme  Colbert, 
a  Frenchman  in  command  of  the  Englishmen, 
claimed  her.  He  told  her  to  be  calm,  that  she 
would  not  receive  the  slightest  offense  and  that  he 
would  conduct  her  in  safety  to  her  husband  in 
Illinois.  He  had  the  boat  brought  alongside  and  all 
entered  it.  When  they  had  gone  about  a  quarter  of 
a  league  the  boat  was  stopped  and  all  were  taken  to 
a  prison  made  of  logs,  with  no  opening  except  a 


326  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

wicket  gate  and  a  hole  on  top  for  air.  She  was  well 
treated  in  prison.  Finally,  a  few  days  later,  the 
alarm  came  that  some  pirogues  of  Americans  were 
approaching.  Colbert  took  away  the  other  prisoners, 
leaving  her  alone,  and  telling  her  to  keep  her  sons 
quiet.  He  returned  soon  to  put  her  and  her  sons 
on  their  boat.  She  told  him  that  she  knew  nothing 
of  the  region  and  asked  that  the  owner  of  the 
boat  be  released  from  prison.  This  was  done.  They 
went  on  foot  through  a  thick  wood  of  sassafras  and 
after  having  crossed  rivulets  and  brooks  arrived 
at  the  place  where  a  boat  was  moored.  She  did  not 
know  how  far  she  was  from  the  Indian  (Chickasaw) 
village,  but  heard  it  was  about  eight  days'  journey. 
A  Chickasaw  chief  (a  son  of  Colbert),  advised  her  to 
ask  to  be  sent  to  New  Orleans  instead  of  to  the  Illinois 
Post.  After  many  entreaties,  her  captors  were 
induced  to  ransom  her  for  the  sum  of  four  hundred 
pesos.  She  said  the  intention  of  Colbert  had  been 
to  hold  her  in  the  Chickasaw  region  until  they  were 
exchanged  for  the  EngHshmen  captured  at  Natchez. 
She  died  and  was  buried  in  St.  Louis  in  1796. 
Her  husband,  promoted  to  a  command  in  the  Regi- 
ment of  Louisiana,  came  to  New  Orleans  in  1788 
and  from  thence  went  to  Pensacola  with  his  battalion 
and  there  he  died.  Their  son,  Joseph  Cruzat  y  Ramos, 
served  as  captain  in  the  Louisiana  Regiment.  He 
married  Dofia  Maria  Palao  and  died  in  Havana.  Of 
his  four  children,  all  but  one  married.  Joseph,  his 
son,  married  Alix  Coulon  de  VilHers,  the  daughter 
of  Marc  Coulon  de  Villiers,  who  was  the  son  of 
the  great  Villiers,  as  Louisianians  call  him  for 
the  distinction  he  won  in  his  celebrated  encounter 
with  Washington  in  1756.    One  daughter,  EulaUe, 


CRUZ  AT  327 

married  Pedro  Sedano.  Their  son  became  the 
first  Count  of  Casa  Sedano.  He  became  also  a 
Councillor  of  State,  Deputy  in  the  Cortes,  and 
Gentleman-in-Waiting  to  the  King.  He  wore  the 
Grand  Cross  of  Isabella  the  Catholic,  was  a  Chevalier 
of  the  Order  of  Carlos  HI,  was  given  the  Grand  Cross 
of  Medjidie  and  was  made  Commander  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor  of  France.  He  was  also  a  member 
of  many  literary  and  artistic  societies  and  became 
associated  with  Castillo  in  the  Liberal  government  of 
Spain.  The  other  daughter,  Malvina,  married 
Nicolas  Heredia,  an  officer  of  Public  Instruction  and 
Professor  of  Literature  in  the  University  of  Havana. 

To  descend  to  the  plainer  and  simpler  folk  of  our 
New  Orleans  narrative,  Antoine  Cruzat,  the  son  of 
the  Governor  of  Illinois  and  Nicanora  Ramos,  was 
born  in  St.  Louis  and  came  to  New  Orleans  in 
1795.  In  the  same  year  he  entered  the  service  of 
Spain  as  cadet  in  the  Regiment  of  Louisiana,  con- 
tinuing in  this  service  until  the  cession  of  the  colony 
to  the  United  States.  He  then  retired  from  miUtary 
service  with  the  rank  of  Captain. 

He  had  married,  in  1796,  Victoire  de  Lino  de  Chal- 
mette,  or,  according  to  the  Spanish  record  of  it, 
Victoria  Morenciano  de  Chalmette.  His  marriage 
was  a  long  and  happy  one,  being  blessed  with 
fifteen  children.  He  was  staid  and  dignified;  his 
wife  sparkling  with  fun  and  wit.  Many  amusing 
stories  are  related  of  them.  She  was  devoted  to  balls 
and  never  missed  one ;  he  was  too  serious  to  care  for 
them.  One  night  after  she  was  dressed  in  full 
ball  costume,  with  her  hair  piled  up  in  puft's  and 
curls,  topped  with  a  feather,  awaiting  the  time  to 
start,  he  felt  a  twinge  of  rheumatism  and  decided 


328  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

that  he  could  not  expose  himself  by  going  out. 
She  protested.  He  was  stolid.  'To  bed  then," 
she  said  with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders  and  bundled 
him  off  to  his  couch.  Dressed  as  she  was,  she 
covered  herself  up  in  hers.  As  she  lay  there,  regret- 
ting the  pleasure  she  had  missed  (he,  well  satisfied, 
went  to  sleep  at  once),  she  heard  whispering  and 
laughing  outside  her  door  and  her  name  called. 
''Come  to  the  ball!  Come!  Come!  We  cannot  get 
along  without  you !  Everybody  is  asking  for  you !  It 
is  not  a  ball  without  you!"  And  so  they  went  on. 
She  stood  it  as  long  as  she  could;  then  with  a  bound 
she  was  out  of  the  bed.  "I  am  coming!  I  am  com- 
ing!" She  shook  out  her  skirts  quickly.  "Bonne 
nuit,  Don  Antonio ;  I  hope  your  rheumatism  will  get 
better  with  sleep."  She  opened  the  door  to  the 
street.  (It  was  one  of  the  little  houses  of  early 
New  Orleans  architecture.)  "Ah,  how  good  it  was 
I  did  not  take  down  my  hair!"  (putting  her  hands  up 
to  feel  her  puffs  and  feathers)  was  all  she  said  to  her 
friends. 

When  the  colony  became  American,  Antoine 
Cruzat  became  an  American  citizen,  though  he  was 
the  only  one  of  the  family  to  do  so.  His  eldest  son, 
Manuel,  born  in  1798,  fought  at  the  Battle  of  New 
Orleans  and  doubtless  witnessed  the  destruction  of 
his  grandfather's  home  and  plantation.  He  married 
Malvina  de  Verges,  daughter  of  Pierre  de  Verges 
and  Heloise  Chalmette,  and  died  in  1848.  His 
children  were  Malvina,  who  married  Denis  Villere, 
the  son  of  Gabriel  Viller6;  and  Odile,  who  married 
Edmond  Villere,  brother-in-law  of  her  sister.  Each 
daughter  left  five  children. 

In  1814,  Antoine  Cruzat  was  chosen  by  the  Pohce 


CRUZAT  331 

Jury  of  the  Parish  of  Orleans  as  Treasurer  of  the 
Parish.  He  served  also  as  Secretary  of  the  Jury  until 
it  was  abolished  in  1848.  For  thirty  years,  also,  he 
was  Warden  of  the  St.  Louis  Cathedral,  a  position 
of  the  highest  local  distinction  and  filled  only  by 
men  of  irreproachable  reputation. 

He  died  in  New  Orleans  in  1854 — a  man  of  dignity 
and  personal  importance;  of  unquestioned  honor  and 
judgment;  and  an  infallible  authority  on  the  events 
and  men  of  the  Spanish  Domination  to  whom 
recourse  was  ever  had  when  such  information  was 
needed.  The  long  list  of  his  children  is  as  follows: 
Armand,  Manuel,  Nisida,  Luisa,  Ignace,  Zoe,  Laure, 
Victoire,  Gustave,  Celestine,  Mathilde,  Eulalie, 
William,  Charles  and  Edmond  (twins). 

Nisida  married,  in  1819,  Laurent  Rousseau,  the 
son  of  Pierre  Rousseau,  Captain  in  the  United  States 
Navy,  later  Commodore  in  the  Navy  of  the  Confed- 
erate States.  Luisa  married  Gustave  Laferanderie 
of  St.  Domingo.  Zoe  married  Stanislas  Nelson 
Peychaud,  born  in  Kingston,  Jamaica,  but  one  of 
the  youngest  of  Louisiana  volunteers  in  the  Battle 
of  New  Orleans.  She  was  born  in  1803  and  lived 
until  1896.  She  was  twelve  years  old  at  the  Battle  of 
New  Orleans  and  up  to  the  time  she  died  loved  to 
relate  what  she  remembered  of  it  and  of  the  great 
men  of  that  time.  Like  her  mother  and,  indeed,  like 
all  her  sisters,  she  was  fond  of  society  and  shone  in 
light  conversation,  consequently  was  very  attractive 
to  the  old  beaux  who  had  the  same  taste  as  she. 
It  is  one  of  the  pleasant  recollections  of  her  that, 
when  she  was  past  eighty,  she  would  always  be 
found  of  an  afternoon  in  her  salon,  dressed  with 
care,  sitting  in  her  armchair,  awaiting  the  visitors, 


332  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

who  never  failed  to  make  an  appearance.  Her  maid 
Annette  once  asked  what  colored  dress  she  would 
put  on  that  afternoon:  ''Ah,  bah!  Pink,  blue,  green, 
yellow!  What  difference  does  it  make?  At  eighty 
one  can  wear  anything. '^  And  it  is  true,  no  matter 
what  she  wore,  she  was  charming. 

When  she  died  she  seemed  to  take  away  a  part  of 
the  city  with  her.  New  Orleans  has  never  been  the 
same  without  her.  She  was  the  type  of  lady  that 
made  the  society  of  the  city  delightful  a  century 
ago.  The  garden  conditions  were  more  favorable  to 
such  productions  then  than  they  are  to-day  and, 
like  the  fairies,  such  old  ladies  have  passed  away. 
Independence  of  spirit,  sure-footed  reliance  on  the 
stability  of  fortune,  confidence  in  the  divine  right  of 
women,  made  the  charm  which  is  lacking  in  our  old 
ladies  of  to-day,  born  into  a  different  world,  at  a 
different  time,  to  play  on  different  guitars. 

Zoe's  sister,  Celestine,  married  also  a  Peychaud, 
but  not  of  the  same  family.  Amed^e  Peychaud,  her 
husband,  was  born  in  St.  Domingo  of  French  parents. 
He  and  his  sister,  Lasthemie,  were  saved  from 
massacre  in  the  insurrection  of  the  slaves  by  their 
nurse,  but  in  the  panic  of  the  moment  the  chil- 
dren became  separated  and  the  boy  was  brought  to 
New  Orleans  alone.  As  he  grew  to  manhood  he  never 
ceased  to  long  for  his  sister  and  to  search  for  her. 
At  last  he  heard  that  she  was  living  in  Paris ;  he  sent 
for  her  and  had  her  brought  to  New  Orleans.  As 
the  ship  came  up  the  river  he  stood  on  the  levee 
waiting  for  her.  She  was  the  first  passenger  to  step 
on  the  plank  and  walk  to  the  shore.  As  she  did  so, 
a  gust  of  wind  blew  aside  her  skirts  and  revealed  the 
most  beautiful  foot  and  ankle  in  the  world — at 


CRUZAT  333 

least  so  thought  a  young  man  standing  in  the  crowd 
to  watch  the  ship  arrive.  He  sought  her  acquaint- 
ance (gentlemen  at  that  time  acted  on  such  im- 
pulses) ,  found  her  face  as  beautiful  as  her  foot,  and 
then  he  sought  her  in  marriage  (as  a  gentleman  of 
Uiat  time  would  do),  and  he  did  not  seek  in  vain. 
Lasth6mie  became  his  wife  and  he,  in  time,  became 
a  distinguished  Judge.  She  died  after  the  birth  of 
her  only  son,  Charles  Amedee,  who  was  reared  by  his 
Aunt  Zoe.  He,  to  carry  the  story  a  generation 
further,  married,  in  1862,  Marie  Meffre  Rouzan,  the 
daughter  of  Julien  Meffre  Rouzan,  the  wealthy 
merchant  and  bon  vivant  of  his  day,  and  of  Alice 
Olivier  de  Vezin.  The  Rouzan  home  on  Esplanade 
Street  was,  in  its  day,  the  ne  plus  ultra  of  French 
luxury,  and  the  entertainments  in  it  were  royal 
events  in  society. 

Mathilde  Cruzat  married  Dr.  Edward  B.  Harris. 
Like  her  sister  Zo6,  she  lived  to  a  great  old  age,  dying 
in  her  eighty-ninth  year,  vivacious  and  entertaining 
to  the  last.  She  outlived  her  three  children,  and  her 
grandchildren,  too,  have  all  passed  away.  Eulalie, 
the  last  of  the  Cruzat  daughters,  who  was  born  in 
1817  and  died  in  1906,  married  Edouard  Gardere 
in  1841.  He  was  the  son  of  Frangois  Gardere, 
Treasurer  for  the  State  of  Louisiana,  and  of  Elisa 
Riviere,  the  daughter  of  the  brilliant  Madame 
Riviere,  who  was  the  life  of  the  social  circle  of 
Governor  Carondelet.  The  Garderes  lived  on  a 
great  plantation  opposite  the  city,  which  is  still  in 
their  possession  and  where  they,  despite  the  cruel 
changes  wrought  by  time  to  plantation  owners, 
still  maintain  a  kind  of  seigneurie  over  the  region. 
The  seclusion  of  their  home  and  their  own  dignified 


334  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

lOve  of  retirement  have,  as  it  were,  sealed  their 
family  archives  from  the  public. 

The  children  of  Edouard  Gardere  and  Eulalie 
Cruzat  are  Louise,  who  married  George  Olivier; 
Arthur;  Edouard;  William;  Corinne;  Gustave;  and 
Ahce,  who  married,  in  1889,  William  O'Connor. 

WilUam  Cruzat,  the  thirteenth  child  of  Don 
Antoine  Cruzat  and  Victoire  de  Lino  de  Chalmette, 
was  born  in  1819,  and  died  in  1900,  attaining  the 
good  old  age  that  seemed  a  hereditary  right  of  the 
family.  He  married  his  cousin,  Josephine  Ohvia 
Cruzat,  daughter  of  Joseph  Ignace  Cruzat,  Spanish 
Consul  at  Mobile,  and  Alix  Suzanne  Coulon  de 
ViUiers.  His  long  life  was  devoted,  not  to  material 
but  to  historical  interests. 

He  left  one  daughter,  Modeste,  and  a  son,  John 
William,  born  in  1858,  whose  life,  therefore,  is 
still  too  fresh  in  memory  for  a  review  of  it  as  history, 
and  yet  no  man,  in  truth,  ever  served  history  better 
or  more  faithfully.  Into  his  soul  had  been  breathed, 
as  it  were,  the  breath  of  the  finer  life  of  the  past  of 
his  State;  and  the  inspiration  elevated  him  above  the 
sordid  views  of  the  present.  To  his  fellow  citizens  he 
appeared,  doubtless,  merely  a  steady-going,  hard- 
working bank  official,  with  a  brain  intent  only  on 
its  treadmill  duties,  whose  handsome  face  was  ever 
clouded  with  the  shade  of  portentous  responsibilities. 
To  the  eyes  of  a  few  friends,  however,  he  revealed  his 
real  identity — that  of  a  secret,  ardent  student  of 
history,  a  passionate  collector  of  documents  and 
facts  to  serve,  as  he  knew  they  would  serve,  to  make 
the  path  straighter  for  other  students  and  to  build 
up  reputations  that  would  overshadow  his  own 
modest  worth.     He  was  a  recluse,  shy  of  outside 


CRUZAT  335 

intercourse,  sparing  of  words,  self-effacing  to  the 
utmost  limit,  yet  outspoken  and  bold  in  historical 
interests. 

A  good  friend  of  the  Louisiana  State  Historical 
Society,  he  served  as  its  treasurer  in  the  hard  years 
of  its  rehabiUtation  after  its  seeming  final  bank- 
ruptcy caused  by  the  Civil  War,  taking  upon  himself 
a  burden  shunned  of  others.  In  his  hands  meager 
financial  reports  lost  their  depressing  influence;  and 
the  members  of  the  society  were  sustained  by  the 
sense  of  carrying  on  a  noble  work  in  the  intellectual 
progress  of  the  State.  He  drew  upon  the  casket  of 
his  memory,  in  which  were  stored  the  historical 
relations  of  his  father  and  grandfather,  to  supply 
papers  needed  for  an  evening's  programme.  What 
he  wrote  has  been  proved  authoritative  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  Spanish  Domination,  and  the  historical 
importance  to  the  colony  of  the  men  contributed  by 
Spain  to  its  population.  He  generously  opened, 
when  they  w^ere  needed  for  an  exhibit  by  the  society, 
his  precious  and  unique  store  of  family  medals, 
medalUons,  miniatures  and  decorations,  and  placed 
them  on  view.  In  short,  as  a  member  expressed  it, 
''Cruzat  was  not  only  the  treasurer  but  the  treasure 
also  of  The  Historical  Society. '^ 

111  health  forced  his  retirement  from  the  Bank 
but  not  from  his  good  historical  work.  His  corre- 
spondence during  his  last  years  with  his  relative. 
Baron  de  Pontalba  of  Paris,  resulted  in  obtaining 
the  invaluable  collection  of  the  Pontalba  letters  to 
which  due  honor  has  already  been  paid  in  this 
volume.  He  obtained  also  from  the  Baron  the 
letters  and  secret  despatches  of  Governor  Miro  that 
throw  the  light  of  day  into  a  very  obscure  corner  of 


336  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

international  history — a  collection  of  documents 
that  interest  not  only  Louisiana  but  the  whole 
continent.  His  carefully  traced  genealogical  records 
are  and  must  remain  the  foundation  of  such  research 
work.  He  died  in  1913,  leaving  behind  him  his 
study,  filled  with  books,  notes  and  documents,  a 
mass  of  material  that  is  still  to  be  properly  inven- 
toried, that  can  never  be  rightly  appraised. 

Cruzat  married,  in  1883,  Heloise  Hulse,  the 
daughter  of  Albert  Hulse  (of  an  old  Welsh  family), 
and  of  Mathilde  Chauvin  de  Lery  (that  sure  and 
well-certified  historical  family).  His  wife  proved  an 
able  coadjutor  in  his  historical  work  and,  since  his 
death,  the  ardent  executor  of  his  rich  historical 
estate.  Their  three  children  are :  Joseph  de  VilHers, 
Marie  Josephine  (Mrs.  James  E.  Strawbridge),  and 
William. 

Note. — Heloise  Cruzat  is  at  present  Assistant  Secretary  of  the 
Louisiana  Historical  Society  and  a  most  indefatigable  worker  for 
it.  Her  essays  on  Louisiana  history  and  her  translations  from  old 
Spanish  and  French  documents  place  her  in  the  first  rank  of  present 
day  historical  writers.  Like  her  husband,  she  learned  three  languages 
perfectly — EngUsh,  French  and  Spanish. 


CHAPTER   XXIII 
JUMONVILLE  DE  VILLIERS 

THIS  name  is  considered  a  feather  in  the  cap  of 
Louisiana,  stuck  there  in  honor  of  a  celebrated 
episode  that  preceded  the  War  for  Independence 
which  linked  the  name  with  that  of  Washington. 

The  incident  is  ancient  now,  but  in  its  day  of 
youth  and  freshness  found  a  place  in  every  American 
history.  As  it  was  then  related:  In  1753  the  French 
and  English  in  America  were  at  peace  by  virtue  of 
the  treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  but  both  sides  were 
secretly  on  the  alert  for  the  renewal  of  hostihties 
which  soon  was  to  follow  as  the  Seven  Years'  War. 
Their  traders  clashed  over  every  boundary  line  and 
advanced  post.  The  poUcy  of  France,  as  we  know, 
was  to  unite  Canada  with  Louisiana  by  means  of  a 
chain  of  fortified  posts,  which  would  insure  her  the 
possession  of  the  great  waterways  of  the  country, 
and  crowd  England  between  the  AUeghanies  and  the 
Atlantic  Ocean. 

Midway  between  Canada  and  Louisiana  lay  the 
Ohio  Valley.  Should  the  EngUsh  gain  possession  of 
it,  they  would  cut  in  two  the  French  hne  of  fortifica- 
tions and  sever  the  territory  of  Louisiana  from  the 
French.  This  the  English  were  determined  to  do. 
They  sent  their  men  out  from  Virginia  and  estab- 
hshed  trading  posts  along  the  banks  of  the  Ohio 
and  its  branches,  and  their  traders  were  soon  deftly 
winning  the  Indians  to  aUies.     The  French,  no  whit 

337 


338  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

behind  the  EngUsh  in  enterprise,  descended  through 
Lake  Erie,  drove  the  English  away,  and  built  three 
forts  to  guard  their  position.  One  of  these,  and  the 
most  important,  was  Fort  Duquesne,  situated  at 
the  fork  of  the  Monongahela  and  Alleghany  Rivers 
(the  present  site  of  Pittsburgh). 

George  Washington,  then  a  young  lieutenant- 
colonel  in  the  Colonial  army,  was  sent  by  the  Gover- 
nor of  Virginia  to  make  a  protest  to  the  French 
against  their  encroachments. 

The  protest  proving  unavaiUng,  he  was  sent  the 
following  year  with  a  mihtary  force  against  the  new 
fort.  He  marched  in  advance  of  the  troops  at  the 
head  of  a  detachment  to  clear  the  way  and  make  a 
road  for  the  advance  of  the  rest  of  the  army. 

While  he  was  thus  engaged,  Indian  spies  and  scouts 
brought  him  warning  that  a  French  force  was  advanc- 
ing against  him,  hoping  to  surprise  him.  To  pre- 
vent this,  he  advanced  his  troops,  maneuvering  to 
surprise  the  French.  He  succeeded.  The  French 
saw  him  in  time  only  to  rush  to  their  arms.  A 
spirited  fight  ensued,  during  which  Jumonville  de 
Villiers,  the  young  commander  of  the  French,  about 
the  same  age  as  Washington,  was  killed,  after  which 
his  troops  surrendered  and  were  sent  prisoners  to 
Virginia. 

When  the  news  of  the  disaster  reached  the  French 
in  Louisiana,  passions  flamed  up  in  wild  fury,  with 
clamoring  for  vengeance  against  the  EngUsh.  Cou- 
lon  de  ViUiers,  a  brother  of  Jumonville,  stationed  in 
the  Illinois  country,  obtained  permission  from  Gover- 
nor Kerlerec  to  leave  his  post  and  proceed  at  once  to 
avenge  his  brother's  death  and  wipe  out  the  dis- 
grace to  French  arms.    For  this  purpose  he  raised  a 


JUMONVILLE  DE  VILLIERS  339 

force  of  five  hundred  Frenchmen  to  which  were 
added  several  hundred  Indians.  He  hastened  to 
Fort  Duquesne  and  found  Washington  entrenched 
in  a  rude  fortification  called  Fort  Necessity,  not  far 
from  the  scene  of  his  first  engagement.  Coulon  de 
Villiers  and  his  Canadians  attacked  with  such  fire 
that  the  English  soon  showed  signs  of  yielding  and 
agreed  to  a  capitulation.  Washington,  who  did  not 
understand  French,  was  obhged  to  use  an  interpreter, 
a  man  of  great  ignorance  and,  as  it  turned  out,  un- 
trustworthy. Coulon's  terms  contained  a  clause 
whereby  Washington  acknowledged  that  Jumon- 
viUe  de  VilUers  had  been  assassinated  by  the  British, 
who  fired  upon  him  without  warning  when  he  was, 
as  the  French  claimed,  merely  a  peaceful  envoy  to 
the  British.  The  word  ''assassination"  had  by  the 
ignorant  interpreter  been  rendered  ''killed"  in  the 
articles  that  Washington  signed,  as  was  fully 
explained  afterward.  However,  the  surrender  of  the 
British  took  place  to  Coulon  de  Vilhers  on  the 
4th  of  July,  1754,  and  the  Father  of  his  country  had 
to  withdraw  before  him! 

The  incident  created  a  reverberating  excitement 
in  France,  and  the  vile  epithet  of  assassin  was  hurled 
at  Washington  in  all  pubhc  assembhes  and  speeches, 
and  as  such  he  was  denounced  in  all  the  newspapers 
and  journals.  Thomas,  a  distinguished  member  of 
the  Academy,  wrote  an  epic  in  four  cantos  entitled 
"Jumonville,"  expressing  the  utmost  violence  of 
abhorrence  for  the  dastardly  way  in  which  he  had 
been  assassinated. 

Coulon  de  Villiers  won  a  promotion  for  his  victory  ^ 
and  was  made  Chevalier  of  the  Order  of  St.  Louis. 
On  the  surrender  of  Canada  to  the  English,  he  with  / 


340  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

his  two  sons  came  to  Louisiana  and  settled  in  the 
Opelousas  country.  The  eldest  son  was  in  the  serv- 
ice of  Spain  when  the  cession  to  the  United  States 
took  place.  He  took  the  title  of  chevaher  after  the 
death  of  his  father,  and  died  in  Opelousas,  leaving  a 
large  family  whose  descendants  write  their  name 
to-day  DevilHers. 

The  second  son,  Coulon,  likewise  served  in  the 
Spanish  Army,  and  after  the  cession  went  to  Havana 
to  live,  and  he  died  there. 

The  ^'old  chevaher,"  as  he  was  affectionately 
called,  married  a  second  time,  uniting  himself  in 
New  Orleans  with  Marie  Frangoise  Beaumont  de 
Livaudais.  He  hved  to  an  advanced  age,  dying  in 
New  Orleans  in  1803.  The  only  child  by  his  second 
marriage,  Charles,  became  a  planter;  he  married 
Marie  Louise  d'Acosta,  and  died  in  the  parish  of  St. 
Bernard  in  1833.  He  was  buried  in  the  old  St.  Louis 
Cemetery,  where  may  be  read  the  epitaph  on  his 
tomb: 

"Ci-git 

Charles  Jumonville  Coulon  de  Villiers, 

Rejeton  d'une  illustre  race 

Sans  cesse  aux  coups  du  sort  opposant  son  grand  cceur 

Dans  Vetroit  sentier  de  Vhonneury 

De  ses  ayeux  toujours  il  a  suivi  les  traces.''^ 

During  the  British  invasion  in  1814,  some  of  his 
property  was  expropriated  by  General  Jackson  for 
the  public  defense,  and  his  fortune  was  thereby 
considerably  damaged;  in  token  of  which  may  be 
cited  the  following  anecdote,  one  of  the  best  known 
in  the  repertory  of  the  rare  raconteurs  of  the  time. 

Some  years  after  the  event,  Bernard  Marigny 
introduced  a  bill  in  the  legislature  for  the  rehef  of 


JUMONVILLE  DE  VILLIERS  341 

Charles  Jumonville  de  Villiers,  and  in  the  course  of 
an  eloquent  speech  gave  the  French  version  of  the 
death  of  the  Sieur  Jumonville  de  Villiers,  and  was 
understood  to  hint  that  France  and  the  French  had 
first  made  Washington  a  hero. 

Larry  Moore,  the  well-known  senator  from  St. 
Helena,  shouted  in  a  voice  of  thunder:  ''Not  a  word 
of  truth  in  it!  Not  a  word  of  truth  in  it!  God 
Ahnighty  made  George  Washington  a  hero!" 

The  Senate  was  thrown  into  confusion.  Marigny 
looked  daggers.  Old  Larry  frowned  defiance.  Mar- 
igny glowed  with  the  blood  of  his  chivalrous  race. 
Moore  was  the  type  of  a  frontiersman:  shrewd, 
prompt,  brave  as  a  gamecock.  Friends  interposed; 
explanations  ensued;  neither  gentleman  understood 
perfectly  the  language  used  by  the  other.  Marigny 
had  been  too  strongly  construed.  Larry  meant 
not  a  personal,  but  a  historic,  he. 

Enthusiasts  have  sought  to  connect  the  family  of 
the  de  ViUiers  mth  the  one  from  which  sprang  the 
celebrated  Duke  of  Buckingham;  but  the  family  in 
Louisiana  seems  to  cherish  no  such  claim,  looking 
to  no  higher  or  better  source  of  origin  than  Nicolas 
Antoine,  Sieur  de  Vilhers,  a  captain  in  the  army  of 
Canada  and  his  good  wife  Angelique  Jarret  de 
Vercheres,  who  was  the  granddaughter  of  the  Baron 
de  Longueil,  and  therefore  a  Lemoyne;  hence  a 
cousin  of  Bienville.  She  bore  her  husband  seven 
sons;  all  of  them  served  in  the  army  of  France. 

Aubert  de  Gaspe,  in  his  fascinating  volume,  ''Les 
Anciens  Canadiens,"*  gives  a  tradition  of  the 
''Dames  de  Vercheres,"  which  is  also  current  in  the 
Louisiana  family;  that  in  1690,  being  attacked  by 

♦Published  in  Quebec,  1864. 


342  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Indians  in  a  fort,  when  all  the  men  were  absent, 
they  put  on  men's  clothes  and,  seizing  guns,  marched 
around  the  fort  beating  a  drum  so  loud  and  lustily 
that  the  Indians  were  deluded  into  the  behef  that  a 
strong  garrison  was  inside  and  retired. 

De  Gaspe's  grandmother  was  a  Jarret  de  Ver- 
cheres,  and  as  the  grandnephew  of  Coulon  de  Vil- 
liers,  he  gives  the  family  account  of  the  Fort  Neces- 
city  surrender  which  accentuates  the  bad  faith  of 
Washington,  but  he  adds  frankly  that  Guizot,  after 
examining  all  the  proof  furnished  by  the  French,  put 
no  credence  in  their  version  but  adhered  firmly  to  the 
truth  of  Washington's  report  of  the  affair. 

Gayarr^,  in  an  article  on  the  surrender  of  Fort 
Necessity,  published  in  the  Magazine  of  American 
History^  gives  a  print  of  a  portrait  of  Coulon  de 
Villiers.  He  is  represented  with  a  face  of  noble 
beauty  and  expression;  of  manly  strength  and  firm- 
ness, tempered  with  courtesy  and  gentleness. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
LAVILLEBEUVRE 

JEAN  LOUIS  FIDEL  FARAULT  DE  LAVIL- 
LEBEUVRE, Chevalier  de  Garrois,  lives  in  the 
annals  of  Louisiana  history  as  one  of  the  most 
eminent  of  pubhc  officials  under  the  Spanish  Domina- 
tion. He  served  as  Indian  Agent,  or,  as  we  would 
call  it  to-day,  Commissioner,  from  1780  to  1797. 

Lavillebeuvre  was  born  in  Rennes,  the  capital  of 
Basse  Bretagne,  in  1731,  and  was  the  son  of  Baron 
Louis  Frangois  de  Lavillebeuvre  and  Dame  Jeanne 
de  Beaumont.  About  1754,  he  came  to  Louisiana 
to  join  his  uncle,  Baron  de  Kerlerec,  who  was  at 
that  time  Governor  of  Louisiana,  his  father  having 
been  induced  by  the  Baron  to  grant  the  young  man 
permission  to  come  to  the  colony.  Here  he  was 
commissioned  Ensign  of  Infantry  by  Louis  XV 
in  1762,  and  the  following  year  a  letter  of  conmienda- 
tion  was  ^vritten  to  him  for  his  good  services  to 
France,  by  order  of  the  King.* 

In  New  Orleans,  in  1764,  he  married  Demoiselle 
Jeanne  d'Arby,  daughter  of  Jonathas  d'Arby,  an 
officer  of  Militia,  the  wedding  taking  place  upon  the 
d'Arby  plantation  near  the  city. 

The  transfer  of  the  colony  to  Spain  being  effected, 
de  Lavillebeuvre  passed  from  the  services  of  France 
to  those  of  the  new  government;  and  as  Don  Juan 

*  Originals  of  commission  and  letter  in  the  possession  of  Mrs. 
Anna  Lavilletbeuvre  Hyman,  of  New  Orleans. 

343 


344  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

de  Lavillebeuvre  he  was  commissioned  as  Captain 
in  the  Louisiana  Regiment  of  Infantry  by  Spain  and 
was  placed  in  command  of  Fort  Panmure,  one  of  the 
Natchez  forts  captured  recently  by  Galvez  from  the 
British.  Ricciardi,  the  only  historical  student,  so 
far,  who  has  made  a  special  study  of  de  Laville- 
beuvre's  services  in  the  Louisiana  colony,  complains 
very  justly  that  although  he  hved  in  a  very  critical 
period  in  the  history  of  the  colony,  and  rendered 
services  unique  in  their  value  and  scope,  there  is  no 
mention  of  him  in  any  of  the  histories  of  Louisiana, 
with  the  exception  of  the  one  written  by  Professor 
Alcee  Fortier  of  Tulane  University.  Ricciardi,  him- 
self, has  handsomely  atoned  for  this  sin  of  omission 
in  others  by  his  own  diligent  researches,  delving  for 
his  information  into  the  mines  of  the  American 
State  papers  and  sifting  the  Carondelet  docmnents.* 

The  Baron  de  Carondelet,  by  order  of  the  King, 
conamissioned  Don  Juan  de  Lavillebeuvre  to  reside 
in  the  Choctaw  Nation,  whence  the  interesting  letter 
of  1792,  quoted  by  Ricciardi,  is  dated,  giving  an 
account  of  an  assembly  that  Lavillebeuvre  had  held 
of  that  Nation,  and  of  the  speech  he  had  made  urging 
them  to  unite  with  the  Chickasaws,  Talapouches 
and  Cherokees,  to  prevent  ^^other  white  men  (Eng- 
lish, French  and  Americans)  from  seizing  their 
land/^ 

As  Ricciardi  says,  the  Indian  trade  was  what  both 
the  Spaniards  and  Americans  sought.  In  their 
competition  to  obtain  its  monopoly  they  made  use 
of  any  intrigue  or  stratagem  that  cupidity  could 
suggest — the  favorite  and  easiest  being  to  seduce 

*  "The  Services  of  Jean  Louis  Fidel  Farault  de  Lavillebeuvre  de 
Garrois."     Nicholas  A.  Ricciardi.     May,  1908. 


LA  VILLEBEUVRE  345 

the  Indian  chiefs  from  their  loyalty  to  sworn  agree- 
ments. This  was  done,  of  course,  by  bribery  in 
giving  medals,  gifts  or  assistance  in  their  intertribal 
wars.  The  traders  who  were  commissioned  by  the 
hostile  outposts  were  unscrupulous  agitators,  who 
had  no  interest  to  serve  but  their  private  gain. 

De  Levill6beuvre  lived  in  this  hard  command  for 
five  years,  stoHdly  and  faithfully  serving  his  govern- 
ment, but  maintaining,  in  what  later  generations 
have  learned  to  know  as  the  Lavillebeuvre  way,  his 
own  honest  principles,  and  not  sacrificing  them,  as 
his  predecessors  had  but  too  often  done,  to  expedi- 
ency. This  is  most  apparent  in  his  official  letters 
and  in  the  letters  of  others  about  him.  He  writes 
with  dignity  and  courtesy  of  the  great  Indian  chiefs 
with  whom  he  was  thrown  in  contact  and  gives  what 
is  strikingly  absent  from  the  letters  of  other  Indian 
Commissioners,  due  consideration  to  their  problems 
and  diflSculties,  as  well  as  to  those  of  Spain.  The 
acute  condition  arising  from  the  marauding  bands 
of  vagrant  Indians,  deserters  from  their  tribes, 
roaming  the  country,  led  for  the  most  part  by  white 
men  of  bad  character,  in  search  of  opportunities  to 
conamit  depredations,  producing  friction  among  the 
tribes  and  arousing  retaliating  vengeance  from  the 
white  inhabitants. 

Carondelet,  on  his  part,  writes  to  de  Lavillebeuvre 
with  the  utmost  frankness,  expressing  full  confidence 
in  his  capacity  to  bring  about  an  intelligent  settle- 
ment of  the  question  upon  which,  in  truth,  depended 
the  stabihty  of  the  Spanish  Domination  over  the 
colony.  And  de  Lavillebeuvre  was  in  fact  reaching 
the  consummation  so  much  desired  by  the  Governor; 
peace  among  the  tribes  and  their  submission  to 


346  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Spain,  when,  his  health  faihng,  he  asked  permission 
to  go  to  Pensacola  for  medical  treatment.  Unfor- 
tunately he  died  on  the  way,  at  Mobile,  in  1797. 

His  son  Juan,  who  had  married  Mademoiselle 
Eulahe  de  Trepagner,  survived  him  to  pass  with  the 
colony  back  into  the  possession  of  France,  and  from 
France  to  the  American  Government.  He  fought  in 
the  Battle  of  New  Orleans,  in  token  of  which  his 
sword  is  still  preserved  by  his  descendants,  although 
the  record  of  his  rank  in  the  army  has  not  been  so 
carefully  preserved. 

But  a  little  story  is  transmitted  that  is  evidently 
considered  of  more  importance.  The  day  after  he 
had  bidden  good-by  to  his  wife  and  little  son,  with 
what  apprehension  only  the  young  husbands  of  that 
date  can  appreciate,  he  went  into  camp.  When  the 
next  morn  had  dawned  on  the  desolate  household, 
and  none  but  the  young  wives  of  that  date  can  appre- 
ciate what  the  desolation  was,  his  little  son  Elie  was 
discovered  to  be  missing.  For  a  few  hours,  the 
EngHsh,  General  Jackson,  the  absent  husband,  all 
were  forgotten  in  the  household,  while  a  frantic 
search  was  made  for  little  Elie.  He  could  not  be 
found  and  despair — the  black  despair  of  a  mother 
who  fears  the  worst  for  a  child,  settled  down  upon 
the  once  happy  home.  At  last  came  a  shout  after 
an  interval  of  anguish  that  seemed  an  eternity.  The 
child  had  been  found !  Had  been  picked  up  trudging 
on  his  little  legs  determinedly  down  the  highroad 
along  the  bank  of  the  river  toward  the  camp  at 
Chalmette,  going,  like  his  father,  to  take  part  in  the 
battle.  He  was  at  the  time  only  five,  some  say  four 
years  old,  and  according  to  one  version  he  was, 
when  found,  actually  stumbling  into  the  trenches. 


LAVILLEBEUVRE  347 

Little  Elie  lived  to  be  an  old  man,  but  he  never  denied 
that  he  had  run  away  to  the  battle. 

Jean  (as  Juan  was  now  called)  Ursin  had  the 
reputation,  in  his  day,  of  being  a  great  hunter  and  a 
great  lover  of  what  used  to  be  called  fine  living. 
He  lived  in  the  country  above  New  Orleans,  on 
a  vast  tract  of  land  that  stretched  from  the  river 
across  St.  Charles  Street  to  the  woods  bordering  the 
lake.  It  is  now  called  Rosa  Park — a  spot  of  excep- 
tional beauty  and  much  sought  after  by  seekers 
of  residential  sites  who  love  the,  as  the  French 
call  it,  ^'je  ne  sais  quoi,''  quality  that  gives  it  dis- 
tinction above  other  similar  sections.  The  dis- 
tinction is  a  heritage  from  its  original  owner  who 
has  endowed  it  with  the  charming  tradition  that  he 
gave  entertainments  in  his  handsome  home  to  every 
man  of  note  who  visited  New  Orleans  in  his  day. 
The  portrait  of  his  grandfather,  the  Indian  Commis- 
sioner, in  Spanish  uniform,  hung  in  the  place  of 
honor  in  the  dining-room,  and  under  it  w^as  the 
glorious  sword  of  Chalmette. 

Lafayette  dined  in  this  room  in  1825.  The 
mahogany  dining  table,  like  the  glorious  sword,  can 
be  still  shown  in  evidence — a  real  mahogany  table 
with  leaves  to  match  that  could  be  extended  to 
accommodate  fifty  places  (and  it  did  accommodate 
them  for  the  Lafayette  dinner).  With  the  table  can 
be  seen  the  tablecloth  that  covered  it  of  fine  Hnen 
damask,  like  satin,  such  as  could  not  be  found  to-day, 
with  the  fifty  napkins  to  match,  as  large  themselves 
as  small  tablecloths,  woven  according  to  a  pretty 
fancy  with  a  corbeille  of  flowers  in  the  center  sur- 
rounded by  a  garland  of  flowers.  They  were  well 
worthy  a  festal  board  set  in  honor  of  so  great  a  hero 


348  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

as  Lafayette!  Tradition,  that  seldom  keeps  within 
bounds  when  it  is  set  talking,  says  that  Chateau- 
briand was  also  entertained  here  by  Lavillebeuvre, 
but,  unfortunately  for  Chateaubriand,  this  is 
manifestly  impossible. 

The  great  hunter  was  evidently  a  great  lover  of 
beautiful  things,  and  a  generous  spender  of  money 
to  procure  them,  for  he  left  behind  him  a  trail  of 
reUcs  to  beautify  the  homes  of  his  descendants.  His 
daily  table  service  was  of  silver  according  to  the 
fashion  of  the  rich  men  of  his  day.  His  crystal  and 
silver  epergne,  with  candelabra  to  match,  silver 
dolphins  supporting  the  crystal  (also  used  at  the 
Lafayette  dinner),  are  still  the  handsomest  of  their 
kind  in  the  city,  which  is  celebrated  for  such  bric-a- 
brac.  A  mammoth  silver  salver,  that  in  old  times 
was  filled  on  fete  days  and  anniversaries  with 
cornucopias  of  bonbons  for  all  the  children  of  the 
family  and  all  their  friends,  is  still  kept  waiting  in 
refuge  in  the  house  of  a  great-granddaughter,  for 
the  day  when  it  will  once  again  be  refilled.  Near  it 
is  the  old  carved  mahogany  mantelpiece  that  stood 
over  the  fireplace  in  the  home  of  Jean  Ursin — and 
still  doing  duty  as  a  timepiece  is  the  tall  mahogany- 
cased  clock  that  ticked  the  births  and  deaths  during 
two  centuries  of  the  Lavillebeuvre  family.  There, 
too,  is  the  round,  gilt-framed  convex  mirror  that,  for 
all  we  know,  may  have  once  reflected  the  proud 
features  of  the  great  Lafayette. 

The  old  father,  son  of  the  Indian  Commissioner, 
had  lived  with  his  son  Ursin  through  all  the  years 
that  led  from  the  cession  of  the  colony  to  the 
Civil  War,  and  through  the  Civil  War  into  the 
ruin  and  sorrow  beyond.     At  eighty-five  his  eye- 


LAVILLEBEUVRE  349 

sight  was  unimpaired,  and  his  wits,  for  he  was 
ever  a  witty  and  refined  ''joker."  His  devoted  com- 
panion (a  quaint  memo  y)  was  a  goose  who  followed 
him  about  all  day,  and  slept  at  his  door  at  night. 
He  died  in  1863,  four  generations  following  him  to 
the  grave.  His  old  servants  remained  faithful  to 
him;  Frangoise  the  cook,  cooked  his  last  dinner,  for 
she  had  persisted  in  remaining  a  cook  even  after  her 
husband  attained  the  dignity  of  State  Senator. 

Ehe  Lavillebeuvre,  the  son  of  Jean  Ursin,  married 
Mademoiselle  Jeanne  Roman,  the  daughter  of 
Governor  Roman.  After  the  death  of  his  father  he 
returned  to  the  old  square  of  the  city  and  Hved  on 
Dumaine  Street  between  Bourbon  and  Royal  Streets, 
in  a  house  that  was  always  cited  as  a  typical  Creole 
home,  with  a  handsome  courtyard  and  great  drawing- 
rooms  on  the  second  floor,  with  Louis  XVI  furniture. 
Here  were  given  from  time  to  time  receptions  that 
united  the  best  society  from  the  old  and  the  American 
population,  Elie  Lavillebeuvre  and  his  wife  always 
receiving  the  guests  and  presiding  over  the  dances. 

The  name  is  extinct.  Charles,  the  only  son  of 
Ehe,  died  without  children.  Of  his  two  daughters, 
one,  Anna,  married  Thomas  McCabe  Hyman,  son 
of  a  late  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Louisiana; 
the  other,  Ida,  is  married  to  Monsieur  Lezin  Becnel. 


CHAPTER  XXV 
GRIMA 

THERE  is  no  name  more  at  home,  so  to  speak,  in 
the  city  of  New  Orleans  than  that  of  Grima. 
The  first  bearer  of  it  in  Louisiana  was  Frangois 
Albert  Xavier  Grima  who  came  into  the  colony 
about  1780,  bearing,  if  the  crudity  of  the  expression 
be  permitted,  his  patents  of  nobility  not  with  him 
but  in  him. 

Albert  was  the  son  of  Jean  Marie  Grima,  from  the 
Island  of  Malta,  and  nothing,  practically,  is  known 
of  his  history  there.  He  enters  Louisiana  history 
through  his  marriage  with  Marie  Anne  Filiosa, 
daughter  of  Sylvain  Filiosa,  the  hero  of  one  of  its 
pretty  stories. 

A  gentleman  of  Paris,  Sylvain  Fihosa,  came  into 
the  colony  as  a  soldier  in  a  troop  of  French  cavalry, 
which  was  stationed  at  the  Natchez  settlement, 
and  was  there  in  1727  at  the  time  of  the  celebrated 
massacre  of  the  French  by  the  Indians.  The  massa- 
cre was  so  well  plotted  and  carried  out  that  the  sur- 
prise of  the  French  was  complete,  and  their  defense 
useless  against  the  great  horde  of  savages  that  had 
been  assembled  against  them.  Fihosa,  with  his 
troop,  was  cut  off  and  surrounded;  and  their  annihila- 
tion seemed  inevitable  when  he,  on  the  inspiration 
of  the  moment,  seized  a  pair  of  cjonbals  and,  jump- 
ing on  his  horse,  beat  them ;  leading  a  charge  against 
the  howling,  blood-drunken,  attacking  pack.  In 
fact,  he  played  upon  the  cymbals  so  masterfully, 

35Q 


GRIMA  351 

that  the  Indians  stopped  short  to  gaze,  fearfully, 
terrified  at  the  new  weapon  used  against  them.  * 

The  savages  retired  in  dismay  and  thus  the 
command  was  saved  by  ^'le  fort  Timballier/^  or 
^'le  beau  TimbaUier/'  or  ^'le  vaillant  Timballier/'  as 
he  is  called  in  the  various  accounts  of  the  affair. 
Louis  XV,  to  whom  it  was  reported,  with  his  ready 
politeness  always  spoke  of  Fihosa  as  ''Le  Sieur 
Timballier/' 

The  Frenchmen  were  all  slaughtered,  but  the 
women  and  children  w^ere  captured  alive,  to  be 
reserved  for  worse  torture  and  slavery.  The  family 
of  the  Sieur  de  Foucault  were  destroyed,  with  the 
exception  of  one  young  girl  who  one  would  like  to 
think  was  saved  by  ''le  beau  Timballier,''  but  truth 
compels  the  admission  that  she  was  rescued  by  that 
middle-aged  pioneer,  Le  Sueur,  who,  as  we  know,  at 
the  first  cry  of  alarm  from  the  Natchez  settlement, 
hastened  to  the  relief  of  the  French  with  a  great 
force  of  Choctaws,  and  he  it  was  who  delivered  the 
captive  women  and  children  from  the  hands  of  the 
Indians,  and  took  them  to  New  Orleans.  There 
the  orphan  children  and  the  young  girls  were 
received  by  the  good-hearted  Ursuline  nuns  and 
given  a  home  in  their  convent.  Marie  Anne  Fou- 
cault lived  vdth  them  and  was  educated  by  them, 
until  she  was  given  in  marriage  to  Sylvain  Filiosa. 

Later  in  life,  ''le  Beau  Timballier''  followed  the 
peaceful  avocation  of  farming  on  one  of  the  islands 
of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  lying  about  the  mouth  of  the 

*  From  the  family  notes  kindly  furnished  by  Alfred  Grima,  Esq.j 
grandson  of  Felix  Grima.  The  dictionary  gh^es  Kettledrum  as  tho 
proper  translation  of  "timballe"  and  Filiosa  may  have  used  a  kettle- 
drum, which  would  have  been  just  effective  against  the  Indians, 


352  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Mississippi.  According  to  tradition,  it  was  given  to 
him  by  the  French  Government  in  concession.  All 
that  is  certain  is  that  he  hved  there  and  that  the 
island  is  still  called  TimbaUier  after  him. 

In  1785,  Albert  Grima  bought  the  corner  of  Tou- 
louse and  Bourbon  Streets,  a  part  of  the  ground 
upon  which  the  French  Opera  House  stood  until  it 
was  biu-ned  recently.  In  1795,  he  bought  the  adjoin- 
ing lot  on  Toulouse  Street,  where  the  family  Hved 
until  about  1840,  when  Felix  Grima  purchased  the 
house  on  St.  Louis  Street.  For  three  generations 
that  has  been  the  home  of  the  family. 

Albert  had  two  sons:  Bartolomeo,  who  settled  in 
Mexico;  and  Felix,  who  remained  to  found  the  New 
Orleans  family.  Felix  was  born  in  New  Orleans  in 
1798.  He  was  taught,  as  was  Gayarre  a  few  years 
later,  in  the  school  kept  by  Lefort,  whom  Gayarre 
has  rescued  from  oblivion  in  the  reminiscences  of  his 
childhood.  Like  Gayarr^,  his  great  contemporary, 
Grima  attended  the  College  d'Orleans,  then  in  its 
brilliant  first  days.  He  studied  law  in  the  office  of 
the  great  jurist  of  the  old  Louisiana  Bar,  Etienne 
Mazureau,  and  was  admitted  to  the  Bar  in  1819. 
Mazureau,  who  was  Attorney-General,  appointed 
him  Deputy  Attorney-General;  and,  in  1828,  he  was 
commissioned  by  Governor  Henry  Johnson,  Judge 
of  the  Criminal  Court  of  New  Orleans.  He  married, 
in  1831,  Adelaide  Montegut,  the  daughter  of  Joseph 
Montegut  ''fils''  and  Gabrielle  Hose  Nicolas  de  St. 
Ceran,  a  member  of  one  of  the  fine  old  St.  Domingo 
families,  who,  to  the  enormous  benefit  of  the  city, 
emigrated  thence  to  New  Orleans  during  the  Revolu- 
tion. Her  father  was  a  Judge  at  Port  au  Prince  on 
the  island:  her  mother,  Genevieve  de  Linois,  belonged 


GRIMA  353 

to  a  Breton  family,  which  g;ave  several  captains  and 
one  admiral  to  the  French  Navy.  She  was  married  to 
Montegut  ^'fils"  in  1805,  on  the  same  day  and  at 
the  same  ceremony  which  united  her  first  cousin,  the 
beautiful  JNIadame  Morcau,  to  the  great  lawyer  and 
patriot,  Edward  Livingston. 

Montegut,  who  was  at  one  time  an  officer  in  the 
Spanish  service,  became  afterwards  a  planter  and 
died  quite  young  in  1815.  Montegut  ^^pere^'  was  a 
native  of  Rocos  Armagnac,  France,  and  was  the  son 
of  Rajmiond  de  Montegut.  He  came  to  Louisiana 
about  1760,  and  after  the  Spanish  transfer  became 
an  intimate  friend  of  Galvez.  He  was  the  chief 
surgeon  of  the  Charity  Hospital  as  early  as  1775; 
and  in  1800,  under  Claiborne's  administration, 
became  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  of  Louisiana. 
His  wife  was  Frangoise  de  Lille  Dupart,  the  grand- 
daughter of  Pierre  de  Lille  Dupart,  who  owned  a 
great  concession  on  the  outskirts  of  New  Orleans. 
One  of  the  ancestral  Duparts  was  burned  at  the 
stake  by  the  Indians  during  the  Natchez  war. 
Pierre  de  Lille  Dupart  left  liberal  bequests  to  the 
Charity  Hospital  in  his  will,  which  is  still  extant, 
dated  1775. 

One  of  the  daughters  of  Montegut  ^^pere,''  Soli- 
delle,  married  Joseph  de  Roffignac,  son  of  the  famous 
Mayor  of  New  Orleans;  another  daughter  of  de 
Lille  Dupart  married  Mandeville  de  Marigny;  a 
third  married  Don  Bartolomeo  MacNamara;  a 
fourth,  Don  Juan  Arnoult.  Her  father  dying  young, 
Frangoise  de  Lille  Dupart  was  reared  by  her  aunt, 
Madame  Mandeville  de  Marigny.  A  very  interest- 
ing  painting,    in    the   Museum   of   the    Historical 


354  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Society  at  the  Cabildo,  represents  Dr.  Montegut 
and  his  family,  including  Madame  de  Marigny. 

Grima's  learning,  abihty  and  conscientious  work 
procured  for  him  influential  clients  and  he  became 
attorney  for  mmierous  prominent  banks  and  busi- 
ness firms.  He  was  in  full  course  of  a  lucrative  pro- 
fessional career  when  the  Civil  War,  Hke  a  cataclysm, 
overturned  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  the  country. 
His  devotion  to  the  State  and  to  the  principles  of 
secession  exposed  him  to  the  rigors  of  General  But- 
ler's administration,  and  he  was  menaced  with 
expulsion  from  the  city,  but  he  was  saved  by  the 
influence  of  a  devoted  friend  in  the  opposite  political 
camp. 

This  influence,  however,  was  unsuccessful  under 
General  Banks,  the  successor  of  General  Butler; 
and  Grima  was  banished  on  a  twenty-four  hours^ 
notice.  He  went  with  his  family  to  Augusta, 
Georgia,  and  maintained  himself  during  his  exile  by 
teaching  school  and  giving  private  lessons.  In  1865, 
he  returned  to  his  home  and  from  the  ruins  of  his 
profession  estabhshed  anew  his  practice  which 
netted  him  again  a  large  fortune. 

He  was  a  sound  scholar,  a  linguist  and  a  lover  of 
good  literature — and  from  time  to  time  he  made 
contributions  to  the  French  pubHcations  of  the  city, 
one  of  which,  '^Les  Souvenirs  d^un  ExiW^  is  still 
cited  with  interest  and  pleasure  by  lovers  of  native 
Louisiana  literature.  He  was  noted  for  his  social 
relations  with  his  professional  brethren,  particularly 
for  his  long  friendship  and  intimacy  with  Frangois 
Xavier  Martin,  the  great  Chief  Justice  of  Louisiana. 
The  chaste  and  imposing  monument  erected  over 
Martin  in  the  St.  Louis  Cemetery  No.  2  (on  Clai- 
borne Street)  was  made  from  the  design  selected  by 


GRIMA  355 

Grima.  The  Grima  house  on  St.  Louis  Street  is  for- 
lorn now  in  its  old  aristocratic  neighborhood;  its 
neighbors  have  deserted  it,  forced  to  retreat  before 
the  contaminating  advance  of  lower  society.  The 
fine  old  street  with  its  saintly  and  kingly  name  is,  sad 
to  say,  retrograding  into  a  decadent  quarter,  but  the 
house  stands  like  a  dowager  of  the  old  nobihty, 
dignified  and  self-possessed  in  her  handsome  middle 
age,  before  the  encroachments  of  undesirable  intru- 
ders. The  most  careless  passer-by  could  hardly  fail 
to  notice  and  admire  it,  a  typical  sample  of  architec- 
ture produced  by  the  blending  of  French  and  Spanish 
taste.  The  windows  are  wdde,  the  front  door  is  sur- 
mounted by  an  elliptical  arch  with  fanlights,  with 
slender  columns  on  each  side.  It  opens  with  a 
generous  sweep  into  a  great  hall  that  runs  the  length 
of  the  house.  From  the  hall  rises  majestically  a 
stately,  curving  stairway,  whose  newel  posts  are  of 
brass.  On  each  side  of  the  hall  are  the  four  great 
gala  rooms,  de  rigueur  in  colonial  days,  with  w^alls 
frescoed  on  canvas — where,  so  the  memory  of 
it  runs,  were  given  the  most  beautiful  balls  of 
their  day  in  the  city;  and  beautiful  they  must 
have  been  to  be  worthy  of  their  setting.  To  one 
side  is  the  garden,  as  broad  as  the  front  of  the 
house — so  sheltered  behind  a  tall  brick  wall  that 
from  the  outside  only  the  tops  of  trees  and  shrub- 
bery are  visible;  but  on  the  inside  filled  with  pretty 
conceits,  walks  and  parterres,  where  still  grow  the 
bright,  variegated,  old-fashioned  flowers  of  a  half 
century  ago.  It  is  the  kind  of  garden  that  used 
to  be  planted  and  tended  by  the  knowing  hands  of  an 
old  slave  gardener  under  the  eye  of  a  flower-loving 
mistress. 

For  the  first  time  in  eighty  years  the  noble  old 


356  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

house  is  empty  and  deserted;  its  hospitable  rooms  as 
useless  as  withered  breasts.  Its  young  families 
moved  away  from  it.  The  ^'Silent  Chariot"  bore 
away  others.  The  last  of  its  daughters,  Adelaide, 
was  carried  out  of  the  old  portals  only  a  few  months 
ago  to  a  last  station  in  the  Cathedral,  and  then 
to  her  last  resting  place  in  the  cemetery.  She 
was  charming  and  well  beloved,  the  very  incarna- 
tion of  the  grace  and  spirit  of  old  New  Orleans. 
Heaven  had  endowed  her  with  its  choice  blessing, 
a  beautiful  voice,  that  ministered  to  the  dehght  of 
society.  But  while  it  was  still  fresh  and  in  its  full 
beauty,  she  withdrew  it  from  the  world  and  conse- 
crated it  to  the  service  of  the  church — to  gaunt  old 
bare  St.  Augustin.  It  is  pleasant  to  remember  that 
the  poorest  and  not  the  richest  church,  the  humblest 
and  not  the  proudest  congregation  in  the  city  was 
chosen  by  Adelaide. 
Sweet  singer,  dear  friend,  Requiescat  in  Pace. 


A. 


&*    Tv  c.  o  li  vj  a.  X  O 


Vestibule  of  Grinia  House — Newel  Posts  of  Brass, 
Balustrade  of  Mahogany. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 
FORSTALL 

THE  Forstalls  lie  like  a  stratum  of  rich  ore  under 
the  soil  of  New  Orleans  society.  Scratch  the  sur- 
face under  any  prominent  name,  and  you  tap  a 
Forstall.  The  vein  is  pure  and  true,  and  it  has 
yielded  in  the  past  a  good  profit  to  the  city. 

The  record*  of  the  family  leads  back,  not  to 
France,  but  to  England,  the  name  being  originally 
Forestier,  Forster,  Forestall.  A  William  de  Fores- 
tier,  a  Norman  knight,  crossed  the  Channel  with 
WilUam  the  Conqueror  in  1066.  Among  the  great 
Anglo-Norman  famihes  which  became  established 
in  Ireland  in  the  twelfth  century  was  that  of  Forestier, 
or  Forestall,  which  possessed  a  great  estate  in  Kil- 
kenny. The  first  of  the  name  in  Ireland  was 
Lawrence  le  Forestier,  one  of  the  companions  of 
*'Strongbow,"  Earl  of  Pembroke,  when  he  invaded 
the  country  in  1169.     According  to  the  register  in 

*  Taken  from  the  papers  kindly  loaned  by  Rathbone  de  Buys, 
Esq.  The  documents  and  the  genealogical  record  that  accompanies 
them,  proving  the  descent  of  the  family  as  narrated,  are  attested 
"as  in  every  respect  true  and  genuine  by  the  Archbishop  and  Primate 
of  Ireland,  the  Archbishop  of  Juam,  the  Bishop  of  Waterford  and 
Lismore,  the  Bishop  of  Cloin  and  Ross,  in  Dublin,  October  12th, 
1758."  The  attestation  is  further  guaranteed  by  the  Apostolick 
Prothonotary,  who  certifies  that  "the  antecedent  lodges  and  arms  of 
the  Forstalls  are  true  and  genuine,  as  recited  in  the  antecedent 
Genealogy:  Signed  by  Fr.  Thomas  de  Burgos,  doctor  in  divinity 
and  prothonotary  Apostolick.    9th  of  November.  1758." 

357 


358  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

the  office  of  Ulster  King  of  Arms  in  Dublin  Castle, 
the  Forstalls  of  Louisiana  descend  from  Peter 
Forstall,  Esq.,  one  of  the  descendants  of  this 
Lawrence,  and  are  entitled  to  the  same  armorial 
devices — the  three  broad  arrowheads  on  a  shield. 

Peter  Forstall,  whose  will  was  proved  in  1683, 
married  Mary,  daughter  of  Nicholas  Aylward, 
Esq,,  of  Shankill.  He  left  several  children.  His 
eldest  son  was  Edmond  Forstall  (the  name  so  well 
known  in  New  Orleans),  who  married  Eleanor 
Butler  of  Dangan,  of  the  noble  house  of  Ormond. 
All  of  his  three  sons  became  Knights  of  Jerusalem. 

Edmond  Forstall  entered  the  mihtary  service  of 
France  and  became  Captain  of  Dragoons  under 
Louis  XIV.  He  married,  in  Ireland,  Ehzabeth, 
daughter  of  Henry  Mead,  Esq.,  of  Kilkenny.  Their 
eldest  son,  Nicholas,  emigrated  from  France  to 
Martinique,  taking  up  his  residence  in  the  town  of 
St.  Pierre,  where  he  married,  in  1725,  Jane,  daughter 
of  John  Barry,  K.C.  Their  eldest  son,  Michel 
Edmond  Forstall,  born  in  Martinique  in  1727, 
removed  to  New  Orleans  and  estabhshed  himself  in 
business  there;  and  in  1761  married  Pelagie  de  la 
Chaise,  granddaughter  of  the  Chevalier  d'Arens- 
bourg,  of  the  Cote  des  Allemands.  In  the  Cathedral 
records  Forstall  is  registered  simply  as  "a.  merchant 
of  this  city.'^ 

Two  years  before,  P^lagie's  sister,  Louise,  had 
married  Joseph  Roy  Villere,  the  patriot  who  was 
killed  by  the  Spaniards  in  1769.  Forstall  took  no 
active  part  in  the  rebellion  against  the  Spaniards, 
but  it  is  stated  authoritatively  that  he  used  his 
influence  with  O'Reilly,  whom  his  family  had  known 
in  Spain,  to  save  the  life  of  his  father-in-law,  the 


FORSTALL  359 

old  Chevalier  d^Arensbourg  who,  heart  and  soul, 
despite  his  age  had  taken  part  with  the  revolutionists, 
and  therefore  had  been  hsted  by  O'Reilly  for  punish- 
ment with  Lafr6niere  and  Villere. 

When  the  Spanish  Government  was  organized' 
Nicholas  Forstall  was  chosen  Alcalde  for  several 
succeeding  terms  and  was  in  office  when  the  French 
took  possession  of  the  colony  in  1803.  He  had  five 
children  by  his  marriage  with  Pelagie  de  la  Chaise: 
Edmond  Pierre  Charles;  Felix  Edmond;  Fehx 
Martin;  Elizabeth  Louise,  who  married  J.  B. 
Poeyfarre,  in  his  day  a  noted  planter  and  citi- 
zen whose  name  is  preserved  on  a  street  that  runs 
through  the  site  of  their  old  plantation.  Their 
old  plantation  house  is  still  standing  on  the  street, 
a  venerable  reminder  of  a  past  day.  They  left  no 
descendants.  Emerante,  the  youngest  daughter, 
married  Jacques  de  Lery,  one  of  the  noteworthy 
Chauvin  family  and  a  first  cousin  of  the  famous 
Lafreniere. 

Edouard  Pierre  Charles  Forstall  married  Celeste 
Lavillebeuvre,  the  daughter  of  Jean  Louis  Verrault 
de  Lavillebeuvre,  Chevalier  de  Garrois.  The  six 
children  born  of  the  marriage  formed  what  may  be 
called  the  Forstall  dynasty,  that  reigned  over  the 
social  and  financial  world  of  New  Orleans  for  a  half 
century.  Edmond  Jean  married  Clara  Durel.  Pla- 
cide  married  Marie  Borgia  Delphine  Lopez  y  Angulla 
de  la  Candelaria,  the  daughter  of  Don  Ramon  Lopez 
y  Angullo,  an  officer  holding  high  rank  in  the  service 
of  Spain,  and  of  his  wife  Delphine  Macarty,  who 
was  a  woman  of  such  great  beauty  that  when  she 
went  to  Spain  to  solicit  the  protection  of  the  Queen 
of  Spain  for  her  husband,  who  had  incurred  a  mill- 


360  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

tary  punishment,  she  did  no  more  than  kneel  in  a 
garden  where  the  Queen  took  her  morning  walk. 
Her  long  black  hair  was  unbound  and  hanging  about 
her  shoulders,  her  lovely  eyes  raised  in  supplication. 
The  Queen  stopped  at  sight  of  her,  so  young  and  so 
beautiful,  and  approached  her  with  the  words: 
*^Your  petition,  whatever  it  is,  is  granted,  you  are  so 
beautiful !''  It  may  be  said  also  of  her  that  her 
daughters  and  granddaughters  to  the  third  and 
fourth  generation  merit  the  same  tribute  of  admira- 
tion for  their  remarkable  beauty.  The  daughter  of 
Delphine  Macarty,  Delphine  Lopez  y  Angulla,  was 
born  on  board  the  ship  on  the  young  mother's 
voyage  from  Spain,  to  which  circumstance  the  child 
owed  the  nickname  of  ''Borquite"  (from  hord), 
which  she  bears  even  in  the  memory  of  the  present 
generation. 

The  other  children  of  Charles  Edouard  Forstall 
and  Celeste  de  Lavillebeuvre  were  Felix  Jean,  who 
married  Heloise  de  Jan,  and  Louis  Edouard,  who 
married  Mathilde  Plauch^,  the  daughter  of  General 
J.  B.  Blanche,  who  distinguished  himself  at  the 
Battle  of  New  Orleans. 

It  is  of  tradition  in  New  Orleans  that  the  two 
young  sons  of  Nicholas  Forstall  were  put  in  the 
office  of  Panton,  the  great  merchant,  to  learn  busi- 
ness methods.  It  may  be  remembered  that  De  Lino 
de  Chalmette  wished  to  do  the  same  thing  with  his 
charge,  Bernard  Marigny,  and  thereby  rather  harmed 
than  benefited  him.  The  story  is  different  about  the 
two  Forstalls.  Panton's  clerks,  according  to  the 
rule  of  the  house,  lived  with  him,  but  had  a  separate 
table  assigned  them  for  their  meals.  The  great  head 
of  the  firm,  however,  noticing  that  the  young  For- 


FORSTALL  361 

stalls  were  superior  in  station  and  manner  to  the 
other  clerks,  had  places  for  them  at  his  own  table, 
at  which  they  thenceforth  always  had  their  meals. 
This  apprenticeship  was  the  foundation  of  the  busi- 
ness development  of  the  Forstall  brothers  and,  it  may 
be  said,  of  New  Orleans.  The  history  of  the  house 
of  Panton  Leslie  is  yet  to  be  written.  Its  rise  to  the 
ascendancy  it  acquired  over  the  entire  commerce 
of  the  Louisiana  colony,  holding  in  subjection  as  a 
collateral  the  trade  of  the  great  Indian  tribes  that 
still  belonged  to  it,  has  but  been  glanced  at  by 
Gayarr6  and  other  historians,  and  the  character  of 
Panton  himself  only  hinted  at.  He  did  more  than 
any  political  power  of  his  time  to  hold  the  vast 
country  together  in  a  common  interest  of  trade,  and 
he  ranked  with  the  Spanish  Governors  as  a  dominat- 
ing influence.  Panton  impressed  his  type  upon  the 
Forstalls,  and  they  transmitted  it  to  the  generation 
beyond  them — the  type  of  the  great  financier  who 
accumulated  great  wealth  while  maintaining  the 
ideals  of  a  grand  seigneur. 

It  does  not  take  the  memory  of  an  octogenarian 
to-day  to  recall  the  type  of  the  merchant  prince  of 
New  Orleans — the  patron  of  opera  and  theatre,  dis- 
tinguished by  perfect  courtesy  of  manner,  not  only 
in  the  world  of  society,  but  also  in  his  business  office : 
a  dilettante  of  the  fine  arts,  a  linguist,  speaking  with 
ease,  French,  Spanish  and  English,  a  man  who  used 
his  wealth  as  musicians  do  their  instruments  to 
produce  results  of  art,  who  traveled  to  London  and 
Paris  as  their  successors  to-day  to  New  York  and 
Chicago,  bringing  back  with  them  the  standards  of 
Paris  and  London  to  apply  to  their  own  life. 

Nine  children  were  born  of  the  marriage  of  Placide 


362  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Forstall  with  Delphine  Lopez.  To  belong  to  good 
society  in  New  Orleans  is  to  know  them  and  their 
connections.  Anatole  married  Pauline  Gelpi  Oc- 
tave, Louise  Forstall,  his  cousin.  It  was  the  daugh- 
ters of  the  family,  however,  who  carried  its  prestige 
in  the  nineteenth  century.  Women  they  were 
of  such  beauty  that  they  became  a  proverb,  and 
of  such  charm  that  its  memory  outlasts  even  the 
financial  reputation  of  the  men  of  the  family. 
Celeste  became  the  wife  of  Henry  Alanson  Rathbone ; 
Emma  married  Emile  de  Buys;  Pauline,  Eugene 
Peychaud;  Laure,  Felix  Ducros;  Julia,  Robert  J. 
Taney,  grandson  of  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  United 
States;  Delzire  married  Z.  B.  Canonge;  Delphine 
never  married  but  reigned  a  belle,  even  in  her  aged 
spinsterhood,  not  only  in  her  native  city  but  in 
Paris. 

Henry  Alanson  Rathbone,  who  married  Celeste 
Forstall,  was  the  son  of  Samuel  Rathbone  of  Stoning- 
ton,  Connecticut.  John  Rathbone,  his  ancestor,  was 
one  of  the  original  purchasers  of  Block  Island  from 
Governor  Endicott  in  1660,  and  had  a  seat  later  in  the 
Rhode  Island  General  Assembly  as  representative  of 
Block  Island.  Henry  Alanson  Rathbone  came  to  New 
Orleans  after  the  close  of  the  War  of  1812,  and  he  is 
commemorated  in  social  chronicles  as  one  of  the  few 
Americans  who  was  received  with  distinction  in 
Creole  society.  He  was  a  man  of  fine  intellectual 
attainments,  charming  manners  and  brilliant  con- 
versation. His  wife,  Celeste  Forstall,  retained  her 
beauty  to  old  age.  Her  stately  home  on  Esplanade 
Avenue,  surrounded  by  a  great  garden,  maintained 
its  standard  of  old-fashioned  elegance  and  its  luxu- 
rious appointments  long  after  the  Civil  War,  which 


FORSTALL  363 

ended  the  old  standards  of  living  as  well  as  the  old 
regime  in  New  Orleans.  She  left  only  daughters: 
Emma,  who  married  John  B.  de  Lallande  de  Fer- 
rieres;  Pauline,  who  married  Peter  Labouisse,  Esq.; 
Stella,  who  became  the  wife  of  James  Gaspard  de 
Buys;*  AUce,  who  married  WiUiam  Phelps  Eno  of 
New  York;  Bita,  who  married  Edgar  de  Poincy. 
Edmond,  the  eldest  of  the  four  sons  of  Edouard 
Forstall  and  C(^leste  Lavillebeuvre,  is  the  one  whose 
name  is  most  often  repeated  when  the  family  is 
recalled.  From  1832  until  1872,  when  he  died,  he 
held  the  agency  for  New  Orleans  of  the  Baring 
Brothers  of  London,  and  Hope  and  Company  of 
Amsterdam,  from  whom  at  one  time  he  negotiated 
the  sale  of  bonds  issued  by  the  State  in  favor  of  the 
Citizens  Bank,  amounting  to  one  million  dollars. 
He  was  also  instrumental  in  framing  the  law  for  the 
incorporation  of  free  banks  in  Louisiana.  In  short, 
to  quote  the  current  account  of  him  in  the  news- 
papers when  he  died,  he  was  the  leading  spirit  in  all 
financial  banking  and  insurance  companies  in  New 
Orleans  for  half  a  century.  And  it  must  never  be 
omitted  from  his  history  that  he  fought  in  the  Battle 
of  New  Orleans,  as  corporal  of  the  celebrated  (or 
once  celebrated)  Battalion  d'Orl^ans.  This  was 
Blanche's  battalion,  which  ran  the  whole  distance 
from  Bayou  St.  Jean  to  Chalmette  to  join  the 
column  of  attack.  Many  of  the  battalion  were  deli- 
cate young  Creole  boys,  yet  they  bore  their  heavy 
muskets  and  knapsacks  with  as  much  ease  as  prac- 
tised veterans.  As  Alexander  Walker,  the  laureate 
historian  of  the  battle,  says  to  them:  ^'With  their  gay 

*RathbDne  dc  Buys, Esq.,  the  eminent  architect  of  New  Orleans 
13  their  son. 


364  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

and  varied  uniforms,  characterized  by  that  good 
taste  and  regard  for  proportion  and  effect  which 
distinguished  the  French  race,  with  their  bold, 
handsome  countenances  and  uniform  size,  the 
Orleans  battalion  was  certainly  a  corps  of  which  any 
conunander  might  be  proud." 

Forstall  also  owned  and  cultivated  a  large  sugar 
plantation  in  the  parish  of  St.  James,  a  plantation 
that  is  still  cited  as  one  of  the  great  plantations  of  the 
State  in  ante-bellum  days  when  sugar  plantations 
were,  so  to  speak,  in  their  glory.  Upon  it  he  adopted 
— one  of  the  first  Louisiana  planters  to  do  so — the 
advanced  scientific  discovery  of  the  vacuum  process 
of  making  sugar.  It  was  a  costly  experiment  and  it 
needed  the  daring  of  independent  wealth  to  carry  it 
through  satisfactorily,  as  Forstall  did,  thereby  prov- 
ing himself  to  be,  like  Bor^,  one  of  the  great  benefac- 
tors of  the  sugar  interests  of  the  State. 

He  proved  himself,  too,  a  benefactor  in  other 
interests  not  profitable  financially.  As  has  been  said 
in  the  life  of  Charles  Gayarr^,  Edmond  Forstall  made 
a  valuable  contribution  to  the  Historical  Society 
at  the  time  when  Gayarr^  revived  it  and  inspired 
it  by  his  own  brilliant  example.  When  Frangois 
Xavier  Martin,  the  historian,  was  elected  president 
of  the  society,  Gayarr^  headed  the  Executive  Com- 
mittee. Under  him  were,  besides  Forstall,  de  Bow, 
the  owner  and  pubhsher  of  the  best  of  all  magazines 
ever  attempted  in  the  southern  country,*  J.  B. 
French,  the  publisher  of  ^Trench  Historical  Collec- 
tions," and  John  Perkins,  that  rich  lover  of  Louisiana 
history,  to  whom  primarily  historical  students  are 
indebted  for  the  superb  work  of  Pierre  Margry, 

*De  Bow's  Review,  afterwards  the  Southern  Quarterly  Review. 


FORSTALL  3G5 

published  in  the  United  States  by  act  of  Con- 
gress. 

Never  has  such  a  brilhant  group  of  workers  in  the 
historical  field  ever  been  gathered  in  the  fold  of  the 
society,  and  never,  it  is  to  be  feared,  can  there  ever 
be  such  a  group  gathered  in  the  future.  It  was 
Forstall  who  caused  to  be  made  the  first  and,  in  fact, 
the  only  analytical  index  of  the  whole  of  the  pubhc 
documents  relative  to  Louisiana  deposited  in  the 
archives  of  the  ''departement  de  la  Marine  et  col- 
onies'^ and  ^'Bibliotheque  du  Roi,"  at  Paris.  An 
amazing  piece  of  work  as  we  see  it  to-day,  accom- 
pHshed  in  full  perfection  of  form  and  detail!  The 
index  was  published  in  the  proceedings  of  the  society 
by  J.  B.  French  in  his  Historical  Collections,  and 
were  afterwards  reprinted  in  De  Bow^s  Review  (Vols. 
I  and  II).  In  addition,  Forstall  contributed  many 
interesting  articles  on  agricultural  and  commercial 
subjects  to  the  Review. 

By  his  marriage  with  "the  beautiful  Clara  Durel,'' 
to  give  her  her  proper  local  title,  he  had  four  sons 
and  five  daughters:  Eugene,  married  to  Lize  Can- 
trelle;  Victoria,  to  de  Lavillebeuvre ;  Henri,  to 
Mathilde  Plauche;  Ernest,  to  Mathilde  Taney; 
Oscar,  to  a  Demoiselle  St.  Maurice  Berault.  Desir^e, 
the  eldest  daughter,  became  Madame  Charles 
Roman ;  Eugenie,  Madame  Valerien  Chopin ;  Helena, 
Madame  Adolphe  Shreiber;  Leda,  Madame  Charles 
Ohvier;  Anna,  Mrs.  Arthur  Polk. 

The  old  home  on  St.  Louis  Street  was  built  for  a 
large  family  with  its  numerous  attendants :  a  princely 
estabhshment,  it  was  called,  in  the  language  of  visit- 
ing strangers  who  traveled  to  the  Creole  city  to 
enjoy  its  foreign  aspect  and  pleasures.     The  simple. 


366  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

plain  exterior  was  the  ideal  of  the  architect  of  the 
time,  an  ideal  that  enjoined  the  contrast  of  a  severe 
external  appearance  with  great  interior  luxury:  an 
ideal  that  no  one  better  than  Edmond  Forstall 
knew  how  to  flatter,  with  his  great  library  of  hand- 
some books,  his  bronzes  and  pictures.  No  article, 
no  piece  of  furniture  that  was  not  fine  and  of  per- 
fect taste,  could  pass  his  portal. 

He  weathered,  like  a  well-built  hip,  the  storm  of 
the  Civil  War,  and  by  an  honest  seamanship  that 
has  never  been  questioned  brought  his  large  fortune 
through  intact.  Four  sons  volunteered  for  active 
service.  Eugene  was  compelled  by  illness  to  resign 
from  it;  he  died  during  the  war.  Henry  also  was 
forced  to  resign  on  account  of  ill  health;  he  died  on 
the  day  of  the  Battle  of  Shiloh.  Ernest,  more 
fortunate,  fought  during  the  four  years  and  was 
twice  wounded.  Oscar  fought  during  the  duration  of 
the  war. 

Note. — Taken  from  the  published  record  of  the  Forstall  family, 
written  by  Charles  Patton  Dimitry. 

From  the  marriage  of  Jean  Felix  Forstall  (fourth  son  of  Edouard 
Pierre  Charles  and  H^loise  de  Jan)  were  born :  Arthur,  Paul  William 
Suzanne  (Mrs.  Duplantier),  Ang^le  (Mrs.  Emile  Duplantier),  and 
Mrs.  Octave  Forstall. 

Delzire  Forstall  (Mrs.  Z.  B.  Canonge)  left:  Rosa  (Mrs.  George 
Binder),  residing  in  France,  and  Cora. 

Eliza  Forstall  (Mrs.  Delphine  Viller6)  left  two  children:  Edouard, 
who  married  Marie  Bouhgny,  and  Placide  Villere,  who  married  Miss 
Cantrelle. 

Felix  Edmond  Forstall  married  Marie  Adelaide  Josephine  de 
Morant,  daughter  of  Charles  de  Morant  and  Catherine  Amelot. 
Their  children  were:  Coralie  (Mrs.  Gustavo  Durel),  Helmina  (Mrs. 
Anatole  Viller6). 

FeUx  Martin  Forstall  married  Marie  Celeste  d'Aunoy,  daughter 


FORSTALL  367 

of  Charles  Favre  d'Aunoy  and  Catherine  Macarty.  Their  children 
were:  Charles  Edouard,  who  married  Mailomoiselle  de  Poincy, 
daughter  of  Rossignol  de  Poincy.  Their  only  son,  Charles  Oscar 
Eugene  Forstall,  resides  in  Paris. 

The  wife  of  Comte  Seminiatclli,  of  Italy,  belongs  to  the  de 
Poincy  branch  of  the  Forstall  family;  her  mother  was  Madame 
Edouard  Le  Beau. 

Anatole  Forstall,  his  cousins,  William  Forstall  (son  of  Felix,)  and 
Placide  (son  of  Octave),  Victor  Ernest  and  Adolphe  Forstall  resided 
till  their  death  in  New  Orleans. 

Eugene  Forstall,  the  son  of  Charles  Edouard,  lived  in  France, 
where  he  was  in  the  employ  of  the  French  Government. 

Theobald  was  the  son  of  Alfred  Forstall,  a  graduate  of  Yale. 
He  inherited  the  intelligence  and  executive  qualities  of  his  family 
and  was  noted  for  his  administrative  ability.  After  occupying  the 
position  of  Superintendent  of  the  New  Orleans  Gas  Company  for 
several  years,  he  was  offered  the  same  position  in  Chicago  and 
accepted  it,     He  died  there  in  1901,  leaving  several  children. 


1 

CHAPTER  XXVII  j 

MACARTY  I 

THE  good  old  Creole  name  of  Macarty  has  become 
only  a  memory  in  New  Orleans.  The  male  mem-j 
bers  of  the  family  are  extinct,  but  the  female  members 
have  carried  the  Macarty  traits  and  qualities  into . 
the  other  old  families  until  there  is  hardly  one  thatrl 
does  not  bear  a  representative  in  their  genealogical' 
record. 

The  family  (originally  Macarthey-Mactaig)  was'? 
a  noted  one  among  the  great  Irish  families,  whof 
preferred  exile  to  the  religious  and  political  tyranny 
of  their  EngUsh   conquerors.     In  the  seventeenth 
century    Bartholomew   Macarty,  of  the  Albemarle 
Regiment,  sought  refuge  in  France,  where  he  gained 
promotion  in  the  navy  and  died  a  Chevalier  of  St. 
Louis  and  Major-General  of  Division  in  the  depart-, 
ment  of  Rochefort.     His  two  sons,  Jean  Jacques?' 
and  Barthelmy,   came  to   Louisiana  in   1730,   the^ 
former  as  commander  of  a  marine  detachment,  the^ 
latter  as  a  lieutenant  in  the  same  command  underr' 
him. 

Jean  Jacques  married  Dame  Frangoise  de  Tr^-i 
pagnier,  and  his  two  sons  returned  to  France,  wherei 
they  took  service  in  the  royal  army:  the  one  in  the 
marine,  the  other  in  the  Mousquetaires  or  household  I 
troops  of  the  King.  The  latter  married  in  New.' 
Orleans  Jeanne  Chauvin,  and  at  her  death  passedl 
again  into  the  service  of  France  and  became  aide  to:| 

368 


MACARTY  369 

Count  d'Estaing  on  board  the  "Fendant.'^  He  died 
in  New  Orleans  in  1793.  Both  brothers  were  made 
Chevahers  of  St.  Louis. 

Barthehny  de  Macarty  (as  he  was  called)  cast 
his  hfe  in  New  Orleans,  where  he  married  Dame 
Frangoise  H^lene  Pellerin,  who  bore  him  eight  chil- 
dren. From  a  lieutenant  he  rose  to  a  captaincy  in 
1732,  and  four  years  later  filled  the  responsible  posi- 
tion of  Aide  Major  of  the  city. 

The  Natchez  massacre  of  1727  had  put  an  end 
to  the  old  easy-going  days;  the  Company  of  the 
West  under  the  threat  of  the  impending  destruction 
of  the  prosperity  of  the  colony  by  an  Indian  war, 
hastily  remitted  their  charter  to  the  royal  govern- 
ment, and  Louisiana  returned  to  the  wardship  of  the 
King.  Governor  Perier  was  at  once  recalled  and 
Bienville  put  in  power  again,  as  the  only  man  avail- 
able to  cope  with  so  serious  a  situation.  He  imme- 
diately set  out  to  punish  the  Natchez  and  their 
aUies,  the  Chickasaws  and  Choctaws,  using  what 
miHtary  force  the  colony  furnished,  and  calHng  on 
the  home  government  for  reinforcements.  Macarty 
accompanied  him  on  his  first  futile  effort  to  bring  the 
Natchez  tribe  to  submission  and  later  took  part  in 
the  fatal  expedition  against  the  Chickasaws  in  their 
village  in  upper  Alabama,  which  resulted  in  the 
bloody  defeat  of  the  French  and  the  final  and  lasting 
disgrace  of  Bienville  in  the  eyes  of  the  French 
Government  and  his  recall  from  Louisiana. 

He  included  Macarty  in  the  list  of  officers  serving 
under    him:    '^Chevalier    de    Macarty    came    into 
colony  in  1752,  Aide  Major  of  New  Orleans.     Con- 
duct   good.     Understands    detail    and    discipHne 
Attached  to  the  service  and  doing  well." 


370  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Vaudreuil  succeeded  to  Bienville.  He  also  led 
an  army  against  the  Chickasaws  and  was  no  more 
successful  than  his  predecessor  had  been.  War 
having  been  rehghted  in  Europe  between  the  English 
and  French,  the  colonies  of  the  rivals  sprang  also  to 
arms  in  America.  Travehng  along  the  Mississippi 
became  a  perilous  adventure  and  hfe  in  the  river 
settlements  most  insecure. 

Vaudreuil  was  made  Governor  of  Canada  and 
Kerlerec  sent  to  Louisiana  to  replace  him.  Macarty 
was  put  on  duty  as  commander  of  Fort  Chartres  on 
the  Mississippi,  above  the  Ohio,  the  chief  seat  of 
the  French  influence  among  the  Indians.  Here  he 
remained  until  the  final  triumph  of  the  English. 
The  historian,  Villiers  du  Terrage,  quotes  a  spirit^^d 
letter  from  him  to  Kerlerec  in  which  he  gives  the 
account  of  the  capture  of  Fort  Niagara  by  the 
English.  Du  Terrage  praises  his  clear  and  accurate 
judgment  and  exclaims  sadly:  ''It  is  a  pity  for 
France  that  this  brave  and  efficient  officer  was  not 
given  more  opportunity  for  displaying  his  capacity." 

Macarty's  presage  of  defeat  was  confirmed  during 
the  summer  following,  when  the  news  came  of  the 
surrender  by  France  of  all  her  American  possessions, 
except  the  Orleans  territory,  to  the  English.  Macarty 
returned  to  the  one  French  post  remaining,  and  died 
in  New  Orleans  about  the  time  the  news  came  of  its 
transfer  to  the  Spanish.  He  left  four  sons  and  four 
daughters.  They  were  not  the  only  bearers  of  the 
name  in  Louisiana.  The  Chevalier  Jean  Jacques 
de  Macarty,  his  elder  brother,  who  had  married 
Dame  Frangoise  de  Trdpagnier,  left  two  sons  and 
three  daughters,  all  born  in  New  Orleans.  Only 
one    son,    however,    Augustin    Guillaume    of    the 


Empire  Work  Table  of  St.  Domingo  Mahogany  and  Brass. 


MACARTY  373 

Mousquetaires  du  Roi,  who  married  Jeanne  Chau- 
vin,  left  descendants. 

The  sons  of  the  ChevaHer  Barthehny  Macarty, 
who  married  Frangoise  H^lene  Pellerin,  were  as 
follows:  Jean  Baptiste  Frangois,  who  married 
Helene  Charlotte  Fazende  (daughter  of  R6n6  Gabriel 
Fazende  and  Charlotte  Dreux,  daughter  of  Mathurin 
Druex).  Barthelmy  Louis,  the  second  son,  married 
the  Widow  Lecomte;  his  daughter  was  the  beauti- 
ful Delphine  Macarty,  who  married  Don  Ramon 
Lopez  y  Angullo  and  became  the  mother  of  the  no 
less  beautiful  Marie  Frangoise  de  Borja  de  Lopez  y 
Angullo  ("Borquite")j  who  married  Placide  Forstall 
and  became  the  mother  of  twelve  children  from  whom 
descend  the  great  New  Orleans  families  of  Forstall 
and  Rathbone. 

Augustin  Macarty,  the  son  of  Augustin  Guillaume 
and  Jeanne  Chauvin,  became,  under  the  American 
Domination,  Mayor  of  New  Orleans  for  several 
terms.  Gayarre  has  left  a  description  of  him  that 
obtrudes  itself  whenever  his  name  is  mentioned 

"Macarty  is  of  an  ancient  and  high-toned  family.  He  has 
served  several  times  as  Mayor  of  the  city  and  is  uncompromisingly 
conservative  in  all  his  views  and  feelings — the  embodiment  of  the 
old  regime.  It  was  he  who,  in  his  official  capacity  as  reporter,  and 
backed  by  public  opinion,  caused  the  first  cargo  of  ice  brought 
to  New  Orleans  to  be  thrown  into  the  river  as  a  measure  of  public 
safety,  because  cold  drinks  in  summer  would  affect  throats  and  lungs 
and  would  make  the  whole  population  consumptive." 

His  first  cousin,  Jean  Baptiste  Macarty,  always 
a  supporter  of  the  American  Domination,  became 
colonel  of  a  regiment  of  militia  and  a  member  of  the 
Legislative  Council,  and  served  under  Claiborne  as 
Secretary  of  State.     He  died  in  1808  and  was  buried 


374  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

with  military  honors,  "an  excellent  citizen  and  faith- 
ful officer,"  writes  Governor  Claiborne  to  the  com- 
mander of  the  war  vessel  in  port,  asking  that  minute 
guns  be  fired  by  the  vessels  of  war  in  port  during  the 
funeral  ceremony. 

It  was  not  the  men  of  the  family,  however,  but 
the  ladies  who,  as  we  may  say,  irradiate  the  pages  of 
the  chronicles  of  New  Orleans;  the  daughters  of  the 
Chevalier  Barthelmy  Macarty  and  Frangoise  H^lene 
Pellerin.  They  were:  Frangoise  Brigitte,  Marie, 
Catherine,  Adelaide,  Celeste  Eleonore,  Louis  El^o- 
nore,  and  Marie  Marthe. 

Frangoise  Brigitte  was  the  Madame  Nicolas 
d'Aunoy  whom  the  Baron  de  Pontalba  celebrates 
as  the  most  charming  of  all  the  charming  aunts  of 
his  wife.  She  lived  in  the  city  in  a  large  house  facing 
the  river  and  was  the  center  of  Hfe  and  gayety  of 
the  family.  Marie  Catherine  Adelaide  became 
Madame  la  Coihtesse  Fabre  de  la  Jonchere,  whose 
plantation  opposite  the  city  was  the  stage  for  innu- 
merable gay  social  functions  in  the  time  of  Governor 
Carondelet. 

Jeanne  Frangoise,  according  to  the  Cathedral 
register,  was  married  to  "Messire  Jean  Baptiste 
Cesaire  le  Breton,  son  of  Messire  Cesaire  le  Breton, 
ecuyer  et  Seigneur  de  Boussou,  Charmeau  et  autres 
lieux,  conseiller  de  la  cour  Souvereigne  de  Paris, 
and  of  Dame  Marguerite  Chauvin  de  Lafr^niere." 
(It  may  be  recalled  here  that  the  first  husband  of 
Marguerite  de  Lafreniere  was  Noyan  de  Bienville, 
executed  by  the  Spaniards).  The  daughter  of 
Cesaire  le  Breton  and  Frangoise  de  Macarty  became 
the  wife  of  Baron  Delfau  de  Pontalba. 

But  the  most  brilHant  marriage  of  the  family  was 


MACARTY  377 

that  of  Celeste  El^onore  Elizabeth  with  Governor 
Miro,  the  successor  of  Galvez.  She  it  was,  more 
than  her  worthy  husband,  who  reconciled  Louisian- 
ians  to  the  Spanish  Government.  She  was  young, 
beautiful  and  all  Irish  by  her  quick  wit.  Passion- 
ately fond  of  theatricals,  she  played  the  principal 
roles  herself  in  the  little  dramas  given  in  her  hotel 
to  which  she  invited  all  the  ^Ute  of  the  population, 
and  she  was  indefatigable  in  her  bright  stratagems 
to  while  away  the  dull  cares  that  oppressed  the 
minds  and  made  heavy  the  hours  of  the  Spanish 
officials.  New  Orleans  had  never  been  so  gay  as 
under  her  husband's  or  rather  her  administration 
with  the  opera,  theatre,  balls,  card  parties  and 
pleasure  jaunts  to  the  suburb  of  Bayou  St.  Jean 
or  across  the  river  to  the  plantation  of  her  aunt, 
Madame  Jonchere.  She  knew  as  a  good  society 
woman  how  to  turn  it  all  to  such  good  account 
that  New  Orleans  began  to  be  known  all  over 
the  American  continent  as  the  city  upon  it  most 
w^orth  living  in  by  pleasure  seekers.  The  great 
conflagration  that  had  apparently  wrought  only 
ruin  and  desolation  during  her  husband's  administra- 
tion proved  a  blessing  in  disguise,  as  the  small, 
homely  French  buildings  were  soon  replaced  by 
stately  edifices  of  Spanish  architecture;  the  Cabildo, 
the  market,  the  Cathedral,  the  large  courtyard  houses 
with  their  cool  alleys,  great  stairways  and  spacious 
living  rooms,  their  decorative  knockers  and  grill 
work  enclosing  their  galleries.  When  Miro  obtained 
at  last  his  permission  to  retire  to  Spain,  he  left 
Louisiana  not  only  reconciled  to  Spain,  but  even 
endeared  to  it  and  beautified  by  its  domination. 
Madame    Miro    accompanied    her    husband    to 


378  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Spain  in  1791,  and  when  he  died  she  was  so  broken- 
hearted that  her  niece,  Madame  de  Pontalba,  has- 
tened to  her  and  remained  with  her  until  de  Pontalba 
could  join  them,  when  they  journeyed  to  France. 
Madame  Miro  did  not  separate  again  from  the 
Pontalbas  but  accompanied  them  to  France  and 
passed  the  rest  of  her  Ufe  with  them  at  Mont 
I'Eveque,  near  Senlis.  A  sister,  Frangoise,  also 
joined  her  and  remained  with  her  until  death,  which 
came  to  her  in  her  eighty-eighth  year.  Madame 
Miro  survived  Frangoise  but  a  few  years.  Both  are 
buried  in  the  parochial  church  of  Senlis. 

Which  of  the  Macarty  sisters  it  was  who  gave  the 
rebuke  to  O'Reilly  we  do  not  know.  Gayarre 
relates  it,  not  mentioning  her  name,  but  we  can 
identify  her  by  the  fact  of  her  living  on  a  plantation 
up  the  river,  as  the  same  lady  whom  he  describes 
as  a  friend  of  his  grandmother.  He  says  that 
O'Reilly's  carriage,  escorted  by  a  few  dragoons,  was 
frequently  seen  driving  at  a  rapid  pace  up  the  coast, 
where  he  used  in  his  moments  of  leisure  to  visit  ""a 
family  residing  a  few  miles  from  town,  in  which  he 
found  himself  in  an  atmosphere  reminding  him  of  the 
best  European  society.  One  day  when  according 
to  his  habit  he  had  provoked  a  keen  encounter  of  wits 
with  the  lady  of  the  manor,  being  stung  by  a  sharp 
repartee,  his  hasty  temper  betrayed  him  and  he  for- 
got himself  so  far  as  to  say,  with  a  tone  of  command, 
''Madame,  do  you  forget  who  I  am?"  ''No,  sir," 
answered  the  lady  with  a  low  bow,  "but  I  have 
associated  with  those  who  were  higher  than  you  are, 
and  who  took  care  never  to  forget  what  was  due  to 
others;  hence  they  never  found  it  necessary  to  put 
any  one  in  mind  of  what  they  were."     Nettled, 


MACARTY  379 

O'Reilly  departed  instantly  but  returned  the  next 
day  with  a  good-humored  smile  and  apology. 

Speaking  of  his  grandmother's  friend,  Gayarrd 
introduces  her  thus: 

"The  plantation  above  the  de  Bor6s',  which  extended  over 
Audubon  Park,  belonged  to  Pierre  Foucher  (de  Bor6's  son-in-law) ; 
the  next  place  belonged  to  the  unfortunate  Lafr6niere.  It  was  at 
that  time  the  property  of  Mademoiselle  Macarty,  who  was  Madame 
de  Bora's  intimate  friend  as  well  as  neighbor,  and  who,  like  her,  had 
been  educated  at  St.  Cyr." 

It  was  one  of  the  great  pleasures  of  Gayarr^^s 
friends  to  hear  Mademoiselle  Macarty  described  by 
the  historian,  then  in  his  nineties,  and  see  one  of  her 
visits  to  his  grandmother,  three  quarters  of  a  cen- 
tury before,  acted.  Her  carriage,  a  curiosity  unique 
in  the  colony,  was  called  a  chaise ;  it  was  like  a  modern 
coupe  but  smaller,  with  sides  and  front  of  glass. 
There  was  no  coachman ;  a  postillion  rode  one  of  the 
spirited  horses,  a  little  black  rascal  of  a  postillion  who 
always  rode  so  fast  and  so  wildly  that  his  tiny  cape 
stood  straight  out  behind  Hke  wings.  When  in  a 
cloud  of  dust  the  vehicle  turned  into  the  Pecan 
Avenue  the  little  darkies  stationed  there  to  look  out 
would  shriek  in  loud  excitement  to  get  the  announce- 
ment to  the  great  gates  ahead  of  the  horses:  ^'Mam- 
selle  Macarty  a  pe  vini."  And  there  would  be  a 
rush  inside  to  throw  open  the  gates  in  time.  With 
his  cape  flying  more  wildly  than  ever,  his  elbows 
beating  the  air  more  furiously,  the  postillion  would 
gallop  his  horses  in  a  sweeping  circle  through  the 
great  courtyard  and  bring  them  panting  to  a  brilliant 
finale  before  the  carriage  step.  M.  de  Bore  would 
be  standing  there  ready  with  his  lowest  bow  to  open 
the  carriage  door  and  hand  the  fair  one  out  and  lead 


380  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

her  at  arm's  length  with  a  stately  minuet  step  up  the 
broad  brick  stairs  and  through  the  hall  to  the  door 
of  the  salon,  where  they  would  face  each  other  and 
he  would  again  bow  and  she  would  drop  a  curtsy 
into  the  very  hem  of  her  gown — her  Louis  XIV 
gown — for  from  head  to  foot  she  always  dressed  in 
an  exact  copy  of  the  costume  of  Madame  de  Mainte- 
non;  that  is,  with  the  exception  of  her  arms,  which 
were  in  Mademoiselle  Macarty's  youth  so  extremely 
beautiful  that  she  never  overcame  the  habit,  even 
in  extreme  cold  weather  and  old  age,  of  exhibiting 
them  bare  to  the  shoulder.  The  mystery  of  why 
with  her  great  wealth  and  great  beauty  she  had  never 
married  remained  a  vivid  one — even  when  old  age 
had  effaced  everything  except  the  fame  of  her  radiant 
beauty.* 

/  Gayarr^,  who  always  looked  at  the  history  of 
J  Louisiana  with  romantic  eyes,  looked  also  at  the 
romance  of  Louisiana  with  historical  eyes.  We  are 
not  surprised,  therefore,  to  find  in  the  pages  of  an 
old  number  of  Harper's  Magazine  a  little  story  in 
which  he  gives  an  authentic  account  of  the  Macartys 
in  the  early  years  of  the  last  century,  t 

"Mademoiselle  Macarty  lived  near  the  de  la  Chaise  plantation, 
once  well  known  on  account  of  its  brickyard,  but  now  divided 
into  streets  and  lots  that  have  become  a  part  of  New  Orleans. 
She  was  in  affluent  circumstances,  possessed  houses  in  the  city  and 
owned  a  number  of  slaves.  She  had  a  beautiful  and  productive 
garden  of  which  she  was  very  proud,  superb  orange  trees  and  a 
well  cultivated  orchard,  and  acquired  considerable  reputation  for 
the  skill  with  which  she  manufactured  all  sorts  of  condiments, 
sweetmeats  and  other  dehcacies.  In  this  she  was  assisted  by  a 
dame  de  compagnie. 

*  "New  Orleans:  the  Place  and  the  People."     Grace  King, 
t  Barthelmy  Macarty's  Revenge."     Harper^s  Magazine,  1887. 


MACARTY  381 

"Mademoiselle  Macarty  left  all  her  fortune  to  her  nephew, 
Augustin  Macarty,  who  subsequently  became  Mayor  of  New  Orleans 
and  died  childless.  She  had  another  and  more  distant  relative 
called  Barthelmy  do  Macarty.  .  .  .  His  son,  Barthelmy,  had 
been  thoroughly  educated  and  gave  promise  of  a  brilliant  career. 
When  still  very  young  he  had  been  selected  by  Governor  Claiborne 
for  his  Secretary  of  State.  Handsome,  possessed  of  those  clean- 
cut  features  which  characterize  the  patrician  of  long  descent,  rich 
and  distinguished  in  every  way,  the  youthful  secretary  was  a 
cynosure  of  society. 

The  two  brothers,  Augustin  and  Barthelmy,  are 
mentioned  prominently  in  the  reports  of  the  Battle 
of  New  Orleans,  and  in  the  measures  taken  to  pre- 
pare the  city  against  the  English.  Augustin  was 
appointed  on  the  Committee  for  Public  Defense 
and  was  among  the  citizens  who  subscribed  ten 
thousand  dollars  toward  securing  it.  The  Macarty 
plantation  shares  with  the  Chalmette  and  the  de  la 
Ronde  places  the  hoiior  of  furnishing  the  field  for 
the  glorious  battle.  Jackson  estabUshed  his  head- 
quarters in  the  Macarty  house,  a  handsome  house 
built  in  the  new,  at  that  time,  chateau  style  with 
galleries  extending  all  around  it,  supported  on  brick 
pillars.  The  trees  and  foHage  of  the  garden  screened 
it  from  the  road,  and  it  was  from  the  gallery  of  the 
old  mansion,  whose  garden  lay  just  within  the 
American  line  of  entrenchment,  that  he  on  the  after- 
noon of  January  7th,  1815,  observed  the  movements 
in  the  British  camp,  two  miles  down  the  river,  and 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  they  were  preparing  to 
attack  him.  About  one  o'clock  that  night  an  aide. 
Bent  to  make  a  report  to  the  General,  found  him 
sleeping  on  a  sofa  in  one  of  the  front  rooms ;  his  staff 
were  stretched  out  on  the  floor  about  him.  Having 
heard   the   report,   he   looked   at   his   watch   and 


382  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

exclaimed:  '^Gentlemen,  we  have  slept  enough. 
Arise.  The  enemy  will  soon  be  upon  us.''  All 
immediately  left  the  house  for  the  camp.  They  had 
hardly  done  so  when  a  cannon  ball,  fired  from  the 
British  lines,  crashed  into  the  room  where  Jhey  had 
been  sleeping. 

A  last  memorable  scene  connected  with  the  old 
house  must  not  be  omitted.  On  the  morning  of 
the  19th,  and  when  the  armistice  had  drawn  to  its  end 
the  exchange  of  prisoners  had  been  effected  and 
speculation  was  rife  as  to  what  the  British  Army 
would  do  further;  a  rumor  circulated  through  the 
American  camp  that  it  had  retreated.  Officers 
and  men  collected  in  groups  to  survey  the  enemy's 
camp,  and  much  discussion  arose  as  to  whether  the 
army  had  really  gone  or  was  only  lying  in  wait  to 
entice  the  Americans  from  their  entrenchments. 
General  Jackson  and  his  staff,  stationed  in  the  win- 
dow of  Macarty's  house,  gazed  at  the  camp  through 
powerful  telescopes.  It  presented  the  same  appear- 
ance as  usual;  flags  were  flying,  sentinels  posted. 
The  General  was  not  satisfied  that  they  had  gone. 
His  aides  thought  as  he  did.  At  last  the  French 
General,  Humbert,  standing  near,  was  called  upon 
for  his  opinion.  Napoleon's  veteran  took  one  look 
through  the  telescope  and  immediately  exclaimed: 
''They  are  gone."  When  asked  for  his  reason  he 
pointed  to  a  crow  flying  near  one  of  the  sentinels 
which  showed  that  they  were  stuffed  dummies. 
The  British  had  stolen  away  during  the  night. 

A  pretty  pubhc  square  in  the  old  part  of  the  city, 
called  Macarty  Square  now,  commemorates  the 
upper  lines  of  the  Macarty  plantation.  In  it  has 
been  erected  a  handsome  memorial  arch  to  the 
heroes  of  the  late  war. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 
DE  BUYS 

THERE  is  a  tradition  that  this  good  old  typical 
Creole  family  was  among  the  early  French 
settlers  of  the  colony,  and  that  its  head  was  present 
with  Bienville  at  the  laying  out  of  the  city  of  New 
Orleans. 

The  first  de  Buys  known  in  the  records  of  New 
Orleans,  Gaspard  Melchior  Balthazar,  the  son  of 
Pedro  de  Buys  and  Micaela  Lion  (in  the  Spanish  of 
the  Cathedral  records),  was  born  in  Dunkirk  in  1789. 
His  forebears  were  seafaring  folk  who  had  sailed  their 
ships  under  letters  of  marque  from  Louis  XIV  and 
fought  as  privateersmen  in  the  wars  against  England. 
Gaspard,  so  the  story  goes,  was  captain  of  a  man-of- 
war  under  the  Count  de  Grasse  during  the  war  for 
American  Independence  but,  having  caught  the 
yellow  fever  in  the  West  Indies,  he  resigned  from 
the  navy  and  came  to  New  Orleans,  then  in  the 
peaceful  days  of  the  Spanish  Domination.  Here  he 
shortly  afterward  married  Eulalie  de  Jean  or  de  Jan, 
daughter  of  Antoine  de  Jan  of  Bordeaux  and  Angele 
Monzey  de  Mont  jean,  a  native  of  New  Orleans. 

The  mother  of  Angele  de  Mont  jean,  according  to 
the  family  record  kindly  furnished  by  Mrs.  Lucien  de 
Buys  of  New  Orleans,  was  saved  from  the  Natchez 
massacre  by  her  nurse,  a  young  Indian  girl,  who 
bravely  tramped  her  way  through  forests  and  Indians 
and  brought  the  infant  in  safety  to  New  Orleans. 

383 


384  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

She  grew  up  in  the  city  and  married  Claude  de  Jan 
about  1750.  He  had  been  established  in  business 
in  New  Orleans  for  some  years.  They  had  six 
children :  Eulahe,  Antoinette,  Marie  Frangoise,  Man- 
ette,  Jean  Baptiste  and  Claude. 

Madame  Mont  jean  lived,  says  the  record,  to  be 
over  one  hundred  years  old,  and  was  visited  in  her 
home  at  Santiago,  Cuba,  by  one  of  her  great-grand- 
daughters of  New  Orleans.  The  de  Jan  children 
married  in  New  Orleans  and  ramified  in  France  and 
in  England,  where  many  of  their  descendants  still 
live. 

Gaspard  de  Buys  seems  to  have  been  among  the 
Creoles  of  his  day  who  viewed  with  indifference  the 
passing  of  the  colony  from  Spain  to  France  and 
from  France  to  the  United  States.  His  name  does 
not  appear  in  any  of  the  reports  of  the  proceedings 
attending  the  ceremonies  involved  in  the  raising  and 
lowering  and  raising  again  of  the  different  flags. 
And  he  did  not,  apparently,  take  part  in  any  of  the 
demonstrations  of  violent  discontent  that  followed, 
when  Congress  decreed  that  the  new  possessions 
should  be  governed  as  a  territory,  and  not  given  the 
sovereign  rights  of  a  State,  as  had  been  stipulated 
in  the  Act  of  Cession.  His  name,  however,  does 
appear  in  the  first  Legislative  Council  named  by  the 
President  in  the  inauguration  of  the  new  government. 
Although  historians  are  strangely  uncommunicative 
about  them,  perhaps  no  body  of  men  in  the  history 
of  Louisiana  has  ever  had  so  many  and  such  impor- 
tant political  problems  to  solve  as  that  first  Legisla- 
tive Council  of  Louisiana,  and  none  have  ever 
received  so  little  recognition  of  the  value  of  the 
services  they  rendered. 


DE  BUYS  385 

Gaspard  Melchior  de  Buys  and  Eulalie  de  Jan  had 
four  children:  Pierre  Gaspard,  WilHam,  Manette 
and  Adele.  Pierre  Gaspard,  born  in  1790,  married, 
in  1811,  Jeanne  Clemence,  daughter  of  Jean  Antoine 
Viel  and  of  Jeanne  Rosa  Dupuy.  The  Viel  family, 
like  that  of  the  Mont  jean,  barely  escaped  extermina- 
tion by  massacre.  They  came  originally  from  Lor- 
raine to  St.  Domingo,  where  Jean  Antoine  became 
a  large  landowner.  Having  always  been  a  good 
master  to  his  slaves  he  did  not  fear  the  revolution, 
and  refused  to  flee  when  urged  to  seek  refuge  in  a 
vessel  about  to  sail  to  France.  He,  his  mother  and 
son  were  massacred;  his  wife  and  daughters  were 
saved,  the  youngest  one,  a  baby,  being  safely  hidden 
by  her  nurse  in  a  well.  They  found  a  refuge  among 
relatives  in  Santiago. 

Pierre  Gaspard  was  so  exuberantly  republican  in 
his  feelings  that  he  indulged  in  an  exhibition  of  them 
that  is  carefully  transcribed  in  the  family  record. 
When  his  eldest  son  Pierre  was  born  he  gave  him  a 
pohtical  as  well  as  a  religious  christening  feast, 
inviting  all  of  his  friends  to  it,  and  requesting  them 
to  bring  with  them  their  patents  of  nobility  (for, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  good  French  families  emigrated 
to  Louisiana  with  their  patents  of  nobility  carefully 
packed  in  their  boxes).  On  the  festal  board  stood  a 
large  silver  chafing  dish;  the  patents  of  nobility  were 
placed  upon  it,  fire  lighted  underneath,  and  the 
infant  Pierre  was  passed  over  the  smoke  of  the  burn- 
ing titles  amid  cheers  and  plaudits. 

The  other  children — Marie  EHzabeth  Eugenie, 
Paul,  Emile,  Marie  Antoinette  Odile,  Eugene, 
Lucien,  Napoleon — showed  in  their  names  at  least  a 
broadening  catholicity  of  pohtical  convictions.    De 


386  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Buys  served  on  the  staff  of  General  Jackson  at  the 
Battle  of  New  Orleans,  and  it  is  one  of  the  pretty 
memories  preserved  faithfully  in  the  family  that  at 
the  grand  ball  given  by  the  Governor  to  celebrate 
the  victory,  the  General,  whose  eye  was  never  dull  to 
heSiVLty  or  to  politics,  asked  his  aide-de-camp,  de 
Buys,  who  a  certain  very  beautiful  lady  was.  He 
answered  that  she  was  his  T\dfe,  who,  though  still  so 
young,  was  the  mother  of  two  children.  Her  sister, 
it  is  said,  was  also  a  noted  beauty  in  New  Orleans, 
and  the  same  reputation  was  inherited  by  her  daugh- 
ter Eugenie. 

In  the  resolutions  passed  by  the  Legislature  after 
the  victory  in  1815,  there  is  this  handsome  compli- 
ment to  his  father: 

"Whilst  our  gallant  militia  were  employed  in  the  defense  of  the 
country,  at  the  several  posts  assigned  to  them,  the  citizens  more 
advanced  in  years,  having  voluntarily  formed  themselves  into  com- 
panies of  veterans,  attended  to  the  preservation  of  police  and  civil 
order  in  town.  They  greatly  contributed  by  their  good  countenance 
to  dissipate  the  alarm  created  by  the  approach  of  the  enemy  and  by 
their  unwearied  exertions  they  insured  the  speedy  and  faithful 
conveyance  to  camp  of  such  articles  as  were  to  be  sent  there.  They 
were  also  usefully  employed  in  seeing  that  the  many  donations  made 
by  our  fellow  citizens  should  be  both  applied  and  without  confusion. 
At  the  head  of  these  veterans  appeared  M.  de  Buys,  their  captain." 

After  the  War  of  1812,  WiUiam  de  Buys,  with  other 
ambitious  spirits,  had  to  be  content  with  civic 
ambitions.  He  was  elected  to  the  Legislature  and 
became  Speaker  of  the  House  in  1846.  He  was^ 
pushed  forward  by  his  party  as  candidate  forr 
governor  to  succeed  Governor  Roman,  and  he  proved! 
a  sharp  competitor  for  Isaac  Johnson,  who  was: 
elected. 

He  lives  in  memory,  however,  still  more  vividly/ 


DE  BUYS  387 

perhaps  as  commander  or  general  of  the  Louisiana 
Legion.  This  was,  as  should  be  explained  to  readers 
foreign  to  New  Orleans,  a  famous  military  organiza- 
tion that  for  a  score  of  years  nourished  the  popular 
craving  for  military  glory  that  has  always  been 
endemic  in  the  place.  Its  germ  was  the  Batallion 
d'Orl^ans,*  that  corps  d'^Ute  of  young  Creoles 
recruited  only  from  the  Creoles  or  Frenchmen  who 
had  seen  active  service.  They  were  perfect  in  every 
detail  and  always  ready  for  immediate  service. 
"When  the  call  to  arms  came  in  1814,  the  Bataillon 
d 'Orleans  stepped  into  the  field  of  action  fully  armed 
and  equipped  and  proved  themselves  trained  veter- 
ans under  fire — Jackson  himself  praising  their 
prowess  and  efficiency. 

After  the  war,  the  battalion  increased  in  strength 
and  stabihty  so  rapidly  that  it  was  necessary  to 
incorporate  it  into  a  Legion,  which  was  conmianded 
in  succession  by  such  generals,  in  repute,  as  Augustin 
CuvelHer,  de  Buys  and  Lewis.  Its  ranks  were 
opened  to  every  nationality — the  companies  bearing 
the  names  of  Jaeger,  Cazadores,  Cuirassiers,  Lan- 
ciers,  Emmett  Guards,  Sappers  and  Miners.  There 
was  among  them  even  a  company  of  mounted 
Mamelukes.  They  paraded  on  the  Fourth  of  July 
and  other  patriotic  dates,  and  were  reviewed  by  the 
Governor  on  state  occasions,  but  it  was  on  the 
Feast  of  Ste.  Barbe  that  they  shone  in  their  full 
glory,  when  they  turned  out  in  splendid  array 
and  marched  through  the  crowded  streets,  with 
bouquets  stuck  in  their  muskets,  to  the  Cathedral 
to  hear  mass  and  be  blessed  by  the  Bishop  (when 
they  took  up  a  collection  for  the  asylums  of  the 

*New  Orleans  As  It  Was."     Castcllanos. 


388  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

city).  Their  banner  was  presented  to  them  by 
the  Governor  in  the  Cathedral  after  being  blessed. 
When  the  war  with  Mexico  was  declared  and 
volunteers  were  called  for  by  General  Taylor  to 
go  at  once  to  the  Rio  Grande,  the  Legion  answered 
within  twenty-four  hours,  readily  furnishing  the 
contingent  required;  and  the  daily  papers  noticed 
on  this  occasion  that  William  de  Buys  (having 
been  succeeded  in  his  command)  walked  in  the 
ranks,  a  musket  on  his  shoulder,  beside  his  two  sons. 

He  retired  in  his  old  age  to  his  beautiful  home  at 
Biloxi  on  the  lake  shore,  where  he  passed  his  time 
fishing  and  hunting  and  painting  in  water  colors. 
He  invented  a  fishhook  for  deep-sea  fishing  that  is 
still  in  use  by  fishermen  of  the  Gulf.  He  died  there 
in  1774.  By  his  wife,  Corinne  Andry,  he  had  four 
children:  Felicie,  Gaspard,  Ovide  and  Hortaire. 
John  de  Buys,  the  noted  duelist,  was  an  adopted  son 
taken  from  his  Irish  mother's  arms  when  she  died  of 
cholera. 

To  return  to  the  head  source  of  the  family,  Gas- 
pard Melchior  de  Buys  and  Eulahe  de  Jan,  their 
eldest  daughter  Manette  married  Pierre  Victor 
Amedee  Longer  of  Rouen.  She  is  ever  cited  in 
New  Orleans  as  a  woman  of  wonderful  accompHsh- 
ments;  a  perfect  wife,  a  model  housekeeper,  an 
exemplary  society  woman;  grave,  serious,  dignified, 
and  although  beautiful  above  her  associates,  never 
condescending  to  be  a  belle.  She  was  left  a  widow 
with  eight  daughters  still  in  childhood.  They  grew 
up  beautiful,  with  all  the  good  quahties  of  the 
mother,  and  noted  more  than  she  had  been  for  charm 
of  conversation  and  manner.  It  is  of  tradition  that 
every  eligible  man  in  the  city  offered  himself  to 


DE  BUYS  389 

one  or  the  other  of  them.  Their  choice  was  decided 
by  the  mother's  sagacity.  All  were  married  well  to 
men  of  standing  in  the  community  and  all  were 
happy  in  their  marriages  and  were  blessed  by  chil- 
dren worthy  of  them.  Not  to  know  the  names  of 
the  married  Longer  ladies  is  regarded  in  the  Creole 
city  as  proof  of  unpardonable  social  ignorance. 
Eulahe  became  Mrs.  Samuel  Bell;  Adele  married 
Florian  Hermann;  Odile,  Michel  Musson;  Armide 
married  Amed^e  de  Saules;  Am^lie,  James  Behn; 
Angele,  Evan  Jones  McCall;  Heda,  Charles  Kock; 
Helena,  Charles  Luhng.  Mrs.  Luling's  daughter 
is  Lady  Alice  Ben,  wife  of  Sir  Arthur  Ben,  M.P., 
London. 

Gaspard  de  Buys  died  in  1827;  his  daughter, 
IVIadame  Longer  survived  him  a  half  century,  a 
cherished  relic  of  other  and  far  different  days, 
respected  and  revered  by  all,  served  by  her  old 
servants,  reUcs  as  she  was  of  older  times.  Children 
and  grandchildren  and  great-grandchildren  came  to 
her  from  their  distant  homes  in  England,  France  and 
the  United  States.  She  passed  away  in  the  home  of 
her  daughter,  Mrs.  James  Behn,  on  South  Rampart 
Street.  No  statelier  procession  of  mourners  than  that 
which  followed  her  up  the  aisle  of  the  church  to  .her 
grave  in  the  old  St.  Louis  Cemetery  has  ever  assem- 
bled in  New  Orleans. 

General  de  Buys'  eldest  daughter,  Felicie,  married 
A.  J.  Mummy,  Esq.,  of  France.  She  had  two 
daughters.  One  married  M.  Schroeder,  Consul- 
General  for  Germany  in  France;  the  other  married 
M.  le  Comte  de  la  Guerronniere,  of  Haute  Vienne, 
France. 
The  General's  sisters  and  brothers,  the  children 


390  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

of  Pierre  Gaspard  de  Buys  and  Elizabeth  Viel,  were : 
Marie  Elizabeth,  who  married  twice,  her  first  hus- 
band being  Hypolite  Tricou,  her  second  one,  Samuel 
Herman.  Estelle  Tricou,  the  daughter  of  the  first 
husband,  married  Bernard  Peyton  of  Virginia  (their 
son,  William  Charles,  married  Anne  Dupont). 
Samuel  Herman's  daughter,  Alice,  married  Henry 
Palmer,  and  their  daughter  May  became  the  first 
wife  of  the  Hon.  Chauncey  Depew.  Louise,  the 
second  daughter  of  Samuel  Herman,  married  Hall 
McAhster  of  Georgia. 

Paul  Emile,  the  son  of  Pierre  Gaspard  and  Eliza- 
beth Viel,  married  Emma,  the  daughter  of  Placide 
Forstall  of  New  Orleans.  Their  son,  Gaspard  James, 
married  Stella  Rathbone,  and  from  them  descend 
the  four  well-known  brothers  who  bear  the  de  Buys 
name  at  present  in  New  Orleans :  Rathbone,  the  dis- 
tinguished architect  and  archivist  of  his  family; 
Lawrence,  an  eminent  physician;  Walter  and  James. 

Marie  Antoinette  Odile  de  Buys  was  married 
twice;  first  to  Joaquin  de  Vignier  of  Havana;  after- 
wards to  Foster  Elliot  of  New  York.  Children  and 
grandchildren  of  both  husbands  survive.  '  Pierre 
Victor  Amedee  married  Cecile  Denis,  daughter  of 
Henri  Denis  of  New  Orleans.  They  had  two  chil- 
dren: Alfred,  who  lives  in  New  York,  and  Am^Ue, 
who  married  the  late  George  C.  Pr^ot  of  New  Orleans, 
a  distinguished  Htt6rateur  and  educationalist. 

Lucien  Napoleon  Eugene  de  Buys  married  Lucile 
Elizabeth  Enoul  Dugue  de  Livaudais,  the  descendant 
of  the  two  old  and  distinguished  families  of  Livaudais 
and  Dreux.  She  and  her  husband,  during  their  long 
married  life,  brilliantly  maintained  the  prestige  of 
their  name  and  blood  in  their  home  and   society 


DE  BUYS  391 

and  were  always  proudly  cited  as  examples  of  what 
the  good  old  Creole  families  really  were.  They  were 
blessed  with  fifteen  children,  twelve  of  them 
daughters. 

To  Madame  Lucien  de  Buys,  who  since  her  hus- 
band's death  has  gathered  together  the  dates  and 
documents  relating  to  his  family  for  the  use  of  future 
generations,  is  due  the  sincere  acknowledgments  of 
the  present  writer. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 
CANONGE 

THE  great  heroic  and  historic  days  of  New  Orleans 
passed  away  and  the  chronicles  of  the  city, 
once  set  to  the  accompaniment  of  martial  music, 
now  move  along  to  the  soft  and  somewhat  monotonous 
strains  of  domestic  and  social  life.  The  city,  in 
short,  is  like  a  lady  who,  having  passed  through  a 
youth  of  anxious  experiences  and  arrived  at  a  middle 
age  of  ease  of  mind  and  comfort  of  body,  can  tolerate 
in  her  journal  only  pleasant  and  ornamental  entries. 
And  pleasant  and  ornamental  in  the  journal  of  the 
city  is  the  good  name  of  Canonge. 

Mrs.  Emma  Canonge  Nott  has  left  her  intimate 
notes  written  for  family  use,  to  which  access,  in  the 
present  instance,  has  been  graciously  granted. 

^'The  maternal  grandmother  of  my  father,"  she 
writes,  ^'wsls  the  Marquise  de  Jusseau.  Her  hus- 
band was  in  the  service  of  France  under  Louis  XV, 
and  we  still  possess  his  commission  signed  by  the 
King.  The  only  daughter  of  the  Marquise  de  Jus- 
seau, Elizabeth  Ren^e,  was  seventeen  when  she 
married  my  grandfather,  twenty  years  older  than 
she. 

^'The  marriage  was  a  happy  one  and  was  blessed 
with  eight  children  born  in  St.  Domingo.  When  the 
revolution  broke  out  upon  the  island,  my  grand- 

392 


CANONGE  393 

mother,  who  was  a  widow  for  the  second  time,  having 
married  her  cousin,  M.  de  Montag6,  left  St.  Domingo 
and  went  to  St.  lago,  Cuba,  leaving  her  wealth 
behind  her,  invested  in  a  sugar  and  a  coffee  plan- 
tation. Thirty  devoted  slaves  followed  her.  My 
father  (J.  F.  Canonge)  was  reared  in  Marseilles 
by  his  uncle.  Major  Canonge,  a  ChevaHer  of  St. 
Louis.  He  was  an  officer  of  distinction  in  the 
French  Army,  whose  devotion  to  the  Royalists^  cause 
was  to  cost  him  dearly." 

Recalled  by  his  family,  young  Canonge  left  Mar- 
seilles and  returned  to  St.  Domingo,  but  was  driven 
away  again  by  the  insurrection  of  slaves  and  took 
refuge  in  St.  lago.  While  there  he  was  fired  with 
the  idea  of  gaining  the  island  of  Cuba  and  turning 
it  over  to  Napoleon,  thinking  that  the  very  sound 
of  this  great  name  would  smooth  away  all  resistance. 
But  his  plot  was  discovered  and  a  price  put  upon  his 
head.  He  made  his  escape  and  joined  his  two 
brothers  in  Philadelphia.  His  French  education 
proving  a  hindrance  to  a  conmiercial  career,  he 
turned  to  the  law  and  studied  under  the  celebrated 
jurist  Duponceau. 

After  receiving  his  diploma,  he  naturally  gravi- 
tated toward  New  Orleans,  where  the  French  element 
was  still  the  predominating  one  in  social  and  pro- 
fessional Hfe.  There  he  took  his  position  at  once 
among  the  group  of  men  still  considered  the  most 
distinguished  in  the  history  of  the  Bar. 

In  New  Orleans  he  married  the  young  widow 
Amelung,  born  Mercier,  a  cousin  of  the  Mademoi 
selle  Clary,  who  married  Bernadotte,  afterwards 
King  of  Sweden.  ''My  grandmother,  Mercier," 
continues  the  little  manuscript,  ''was  a  Demoiselle 


394  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Fontenelle,  of  the  same  family  as  'le  grand  Fonten- 
elle/  who  was  related  to  Corneille.  The  home  of 
my  father  and  mother  was  a  most  hospitable  one, 
all  visitors  of  distinction  were  presented  in  it;  the 
Prince  of  Wagram,  Lafayette  and  General  Desnou- 
ettes;  who  gave  to  my  mother  the  precious  souvenir 
of  five  letters  of  Napoleon  written  (still  in  existence) 
to  him/' 

At  the  time  of  his  arrival,  French  and  EngHsh 
were  both  used  on  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives. Canonge  filled  the  position  of  clerk  of 
the  House  for  several  sessions.  Possessed  of  an 
incomparable  memory,  he  took  no  notes  of  discus- 
sions and  debates,  and  although  it  frequently 
occurred  that  in  the  official  proceedings  translations 
were  required  from  one  language  to  the  other,  he 
made  them  without  omitting  any  important  feature 
and  frequently  reporting  the  words  hterally.  He 
made  a  name  as  orator,  linguist  and  improvisator, 
speaking  impromptu  in  French,  Spanish  or  English. 
He  was  called  in  his  day — oh,  golden  day  of  social 
intercourse ! — an  accomplished  conversationaHst,  and 
when  he  talked  men  gathered  around  him  to  Hsten; 
he  was  also  a  ready  rhymester  and  astonished,  on  two 
occasions,  his  audience  by  delivering  addresses  in 
verse.  And  to  add  to  his  accomphshments,  he 
translated  the  Georgics  of  Virgil  into  St.  Domingo 
Creole  patois. 

His  success  at  the  Bar  secured  for  him  the  appoint- 
ment of  Judge  of  the  Criminal  Court  by  Governor 
Roman.  At  that  time  the  Criminal  Court  was 
unique  in  its  character ;  from  it  there  was  no  appeal. 
He  filled  this  position  for  ten  or  twelve  years,  dis- 
tinguishing himself  by  his  enlightened  legal  views 


CANONGE  395 

and  by  the  impartiality  of  his  charges  to  the  jury. 
A  legal  incident  in  his  career  is  mentioned  by  his 
biographer.*  On  one  occasion  the  celebrated  Judge 
Xavier  Martin,  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
intimated  to  Judge  Canonge  that  in  a  certain  case 
he  should  accord  a  new  trial;  Canonge  refused  to 
comply,  and  although  the  Supreme  Court  persisted 
in  its  demands,  the  Criminal  Judge,  alleging  that 
there  was  no  appeal  against  the  decisions  of  his 
court,  continued  firm  in  his  position.  The  result 
was  that  the  Supreme  Court  issued  an  order  for  his 
arrest  for  contempt  of  court,  which  was  met  by 
Judge  Canonge  ordering  the  arrest  of  five  judges  of 
the  Supreme  Court  for  the  same  offense.  The 
operations  of  the  two  courts  were  suspended  in 
consequence  of  their  antagonism,  but  the  matter 
was  finally  settled  by  the  acknowledgment  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  legality  of  Canonge^s  position. 

Judge  Canonge's  wife  died  in  Paris  in  1830.  From 
the  marriage  were  born  four  sons;  Alphonse,  Hypo- 
lite,  Placide  and  Ernest.  All  were  educated  in  Paris 
at  the  College  Louis  le  Grand.  Alphonse,  following 
in  the  footsteps  of  his  father,  became  an  eminent 
laTsyer  and  was  prominent  as  the  Superintendent  of 
Pubhc  Schools.  Hypolite  Canonge,  also  a  brilhant 
scholar,  died  at  the  beginning  of  his  career.  Placide, 
who  married  Miss  Forstall,  is  remembered  by  his 
son,  Placide,  who  for  half  a  century  was  the  bright 
light  of  literature  in  New  Orleans.  He  was  the 
brilliant  collaborator  in  the  ''Abeille,"  the  only 
French  newspaper  in  Louisiana,  and  infused  into  it  a 
vitality  that  it  lost  at  his  death.  He  was  also  the 
hero  of  his  time  in  the  gay  world  of  society.     He 

*  Charles  Palton  Dimitry. 


396  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

wrote  light  comedies  and  proverbs  in  prose  and  in 
verse,  which  under  his  direction  were  acted  in  the 
private  and  exclusive  salons  of  the  society  leaders, 
the  roles  being  filled  by  the  beaux  and  belles  of  the 
''beau  monde/' 

"Qui  perd,  gagne,"  a  comedy  in  one  act  in  prose,  is  remembered 
as  one  of  the  most  successful. 

''Le  comte  de  Carmagnola,"  a  drama  of  five  acts,  appeared  in 
1849,  and  was  dedicated  to  Alfted  de  Musset;  it  was  acted  several 
times  with  great  success  in  New  Orleans. 

Emma  Canonge,  married  to  Mr.  George  William 
Nott,  lived  to  a  great  old  age,  surviving  her  husband 
so  long  that  she  was  known  only  as  the  mother  of 
her  son,  George  William  Nott.  She  was  educated  at 
a  celebrated  boarding  school  in  Paris,  where  she  was 
noted  among  her  fellow  pupils  for  her  accomplish- 
ments. Like  her  brother,  she  possessed  a  mind  of 
superior  quality  that  never  lost  its  Paris  polish  and 
finish.  She  remained  a  prominent  member  of 
society  to  her  last  years,  preserving  her  beauty  of 
face  and  distinction  of  manner,  without  a  concession 
to  time.  In  her  loge  at  the  opera,  always  in  company 
with  her  son,  her  beautiful  daughter-in-law,  and  her 
granddaughters,  she  was  ever  one  of  the  distinctive 
features  of  the  audience.  It  was  in  regard  to  her 
that  a  saying  of  Brunetiere's  was  distorted  from 
''what  is  not  clear  is  not  French,"  into  "what  is  not 
charming  is  not  Canonge." 


CHAPTER  XXX 

DUBOURG 

DuBOURG — Charest  de  Lauzon — Bringier 

TUREAUD 

NOT  four  families  but  four  names;  four  strands, 
as  it  were,  forming  a  single  cord.  We  begin, 
as  is  due,  with  the  most  prominent  one  historically — 
Dubourg. 

The  ancestral  line  of  the  Dubourgs  is  set  forth  in  a 
''maintenance  de  noblesse,"  dating  from  1623,  which 
was  deposited  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale,  Paris, 
in  the  eighteenth  century  by  Pierre  Frangois 
Dubourg,  ''on  the  point  of  undertaking  a  long 
journey."  The  maintenance  was  discovered  two 
centuries  later  by  Henri  Dubourg,  an  ex-officer  of 
Hussars,  who  had  been  devoting  many  years  to  the 
study  of  his  family.  He  and  his  younger  brother 
Joseph  (known  later  as  the  devoted  adherent  of  the 
Comte  de  Chambord),  belong  to  the  Chateau  de 
Morville  branch  of  the  family,  the  Seigneurs  de 
Rochemont,  near  la  Louvere,  whence  arises  the 
Louisiana  branch  of  the  family. 

The  parent  Une  runs  back  to  the  celebrated  Anne 
Dubourg,  Chancellor  of  Francis  II,  who  was  burned 
at  the  stake  for  favoring  the  Protestants  in  the  six- 
eenth  century,  and  from  him  to  a  great-grandfather, 
Hugues  Dubourg,  who  lived  in  1396.  The  Louisiana 
line   begins   with   "M.    Pierre   Frangois   Dubourg, 

397 


398  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

ecuyer  et  Capitaine  de  Navire,"  the  husband  of 
Marguerite  Vogluzan,  who  filed  his  ''maintenance  de 
noblesse''  in  Paris,  before  undertaking  a  long 
voyage.  This  was  to  St.  Domingo,  where  he  settled 
at  Cap  Frangois  and  became  proprietor  of  the  great 
estate  of  Ste.  Colombe. 

Here,  in  1766,  was  born  his  eldest  son,  the  great 
Archbishop  Dubourg — the  first  American  Bishop,  as 
he  is  called,  of  New  Orleans.  Pierre  Frangois 
Dubourg,  known  as  the  "Chevalier  de  Ste.  Colombe,'' 
was  born  the  following  year  and  succeeded  his 
father  as  proprietor  of  Ste.  Colombe.  He  was 
educated  in  France  and  England.  His  estate  being 
ruined  and  his  home  destroyed  in  the  revolt  of  the 
slaves  in  1793,  he  escaped  to  Jamaica,  and  there  in 
1797  married  Demoiselle  Elizabeth  Etienne  Charest 
de  Lauzon,  daughter  of  M.  Frangois  Charest  de 
Lauzon  and  of  Demoiselle  Perrine  Therese  de 
Goarnay,  his  wife,  who  was  the  daughter  of  Michel 
Isaac  de  Gournay,  Chevalier  of  St.  Louis.  All  of 
them  were  described  in  the  marriage  contract  as 
residents  of  the  Quartier  de  la  Marmelade,  Island  of 
St.  Domingo,  and  now,  by  reason  of  the  misfortunes 
of  that  colony,  refugees  in  the  town  of  Kingston, 
Jamaica. 

The  married  pair  came  to  the  United  States  and 
after  passing  through  New  Orleans  visited  the  elder 
brother.  Abbe  Dubourg,  who  lived  in  Baltimore, 
taking  with  them  their  Httle  daughter  Agla^,  then 
about  nine  years  old.  Leaving  the  child  in  Baltimore 
to  be  educated  under  the  supervision  of  her  uncle, 
the  abb^,  Pierre  Frangois  Dubourg  and  his  wife 
returned  to  New  Orleans  about  1800,  and  there 


DUBOURG  399 

made  their  home  with  the  Chevalier  Charest  de 
Lauzon  and  his  wife  on  Dumaine  Street. 

In  New  Orleans,  Dubourg  became,  three  years 
later,  an  American  citizen  and,  profiting  by  the 
undeniable  commercial  advantages  resulting  to  the 
city  from  its  transfer  to  the  United  States,  he  set 
himself  to  the  work  of  repairing  his  shattered  for- 
tunes. He  succeeded  in  this  to  the  full  measure  of 
his  best  hopes  as  a  merchant;  and  he  rose  to  high 
position  in  the  social  as  well  as  in  the  commercial 
world. 

He  attained  the  rank  of  Major  in  the  Louisiana 
Volunteers,  the  most  distinguished  corps  of  the 
militia,  and  in  the  records  of  the  Cathedral  is 
described  as  Collector  of  the  Port  of  New  Orleans, 
though  there  seems  to  be  no  official  confirmation  of 
such  an  appointment.  He  acted  as  Consul  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Sardinia,  and  filled  the  lucrative  posi- 
tion of  agent  for  his  rich  son-in-law,  Bringier,  and 
for  many  other  of  the  wealthy  sugar  planters. 

Although  a  good  and  practising  Catholic,  like 
many  other  men  of  his  church  at  this  time  in  New 
Orleans,  Dubourg  was  a  Mason  and  was  elected 
Worshipful  Grand  Master  of  the  Perfect  Union 
Lodge,  the  oldest  in  the  State,  which  in  1812  he 
formed  into  a  grand  lodge  combining  all  the  others, 
including  the  Polar  Star  Lodge  to  which  Carlos 
Gayarr^,  the  father  of  the  historian,  belonged. 
Dubourg  was  re-elected  Grand  Master  in  1813  and 
1814. 

Dubourg  acquired  a  large  estate  just  above  the 
city,  'Tlaisance,"  it  was  called,  which  is  the  origin 
of  the  name  of  the  Pleasant  Street  of  to-day.    Louis- 


400  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

iana  Avenue,  the  handsome  boulevard  just  above 
Pleasant  Street,  runs  through  what  was  once  the 
center  of  the  Dubourg  property. 

He  died  in  New  Orleans  in  1830,  leaving  five 
daughters.  His  eldest  daughter,  Aglae,  educated 
in  Baltimore  under  the  supervision  of  Mrs.  Seton, 
the  founder  of  the  College  at  Emettsburg,  was 
married  to  Doradou  Bringier.  His  four  other  i 
daughters  were  reared  in  the  family  home  on 
Dumaine  Street.  No^mie  married  General  Horatio 
Davis*  of  the  Delaware  family.  EHza  married 
Seaman  Field,  Captain  of  the  Thirty-second  United 
States  Infantry,  of  which  regiment  his  father  was 
Colonel.  He  became  Colonel  of  the  Louisiana 
Volunteers  in  the  Mexican  War  and  later  Adjutant- 
General  of  the  State  of  Louisiana.  Their  daughter 
married  Bailly  Blanchard,  of  New  Orleans,  long 
connected  with  the  American  Legation  in  Paris; 
his  son  was  a  Chevalier  of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  His 
daughter,  the  Vicomtesse  Henri  Perrot,  resides  in 
France.  Victoire  married  James  Harvey  Field, 
nephew  of  Seaman  Field.  Their  descendants  have 
moved  away  from  New  Orleans.  Adele  married  her 
cousin,  John  Thibaut.  They  have  many  descendants 
in  Louisiana. 

But  the  glory  of  the  family,  as  has  been  stated, 
was  the  Archbishop,  Louis  Guillaume  Valentin.  He 
was  sent  to  France  when  but  two  years  old  to  be 

*  General  Horatio  Davis,  born  in  1761,  was  made  Colonel  for 
his  gallant  defense  of  Lewes  during  the  War  of  1812.  He  was  at 
one  time  Captain  of  the  Port  of  New  Orleans,  and  resided  at  "la 
Corderie,"  the  famous  old  "Rope  Walk"  of  early  American  New 
Orleans,  just  above  the  canal  which  was  filled  and  turned  into  the 
handsome  street  called  Canal,  the  shopping  center  of  the  city  for  half 
a  century. 


DUBOURG  401 

educated  for  the  church.  At  the  time  of  the  Revolu- 
tion he  was  at  the  head  of  a  Sulpician  school  at 
Issy,  near  Paris.  He  escaped  from  it,  in  disguise,  to 
Paris,  going  to  the  superior  branch  of  the  school,  rue 
Cassette,  where  it  is  still  recalled  that  his  disguise 
caused  great  amusement.  The  day  of  his  arrival 
there,  the  revolutionists  invaded  the  comnmnity 
on  the  rue  Cassette  and,  seizing  the  head  of  it,  flung 
him  into  prison  and  executed  him  shortly  after. 
Dubourg  was  in  hiding  at  a  friend's  when  the  dread- 
ful massacres  took  place.  Again  fleeing  in  disguise, 
he  made  his  w^ay  out  of  Paris  and  proceeded  to 
Bordeaux,  where  he  found  his  family;  but  being 
doubly  odious  in  the  eyes  of  the  revolutionists  as  a 
cleric  and  as  an  aristocrat  he  fled  again,  this  time  to 
Spain.  He  sailed  to  America  and  landed  in  Balti- 
more in  1794,  about  the  time  when  the  negro  revolt 
in  St.  Domingo  was  driving  his  family  to  America 
and  destroying  their  fortune.  Two  years  after  his 
arrival  in  Baltimore,  he  became  President  of  the 
Georgetown  College.  He  gained  for  it  a  brilliant 
reputation  among  the  universities  of  the  United 
States.  George  Washington  honored  it  during 
Dubourg's  term  with  a  formal  visit. 

The  abbe  founded  St.  Mary's  College  and  had  it 
raised  by  the  Legislature  of  Maryland  to  the  grade 
of  university.  As  spiritual  director  of  the  famous 
Mrs.  Seton,  he  assisted  her  in  the  founding  of  the 
Order  of  Sisters  of  St.  Joseph  (popularly  known  as 
the  Sisters  of  Charity).  He  entered  the  ecclesiastical 
history  of  Louisiana  in  1803,  when  the  colony  was 
separated  from  the  spiritual  jurisdiction  of  Havana 
and  placed  under  that  of  the  diocese  of  Maryland, 
then  under  Archbishop  Carroll,  who  finally,  after 


402  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

several  years  of  troublous,  unsuccessful  efforts, 
selected  the  brilliant,  energetic  Abbe  Dubourg  as  the 
Administrator  Apostolic  of  the  so-called  (in  ecclesi- 
astical histories)  "unhappy  diocese'^  of  Louisiana. 

This  opens  the  chapter  famous  in  Louisiana  his- 
tory of  the  controversy  between  the  administrator 
apostolic,  the  duly  appointed  ecclesiastical  spiritual 
authority  over  the  St.  Louis  Cathedral,  and  Pere 
Antoine  de  Sedilla,  the  beloved  and  revered  author- 
ity de  facto  over  the  hearts  of  the  congregation. 
The  episode  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  in  the 
history  of  Louisiana  and  has  been  made  the  subject 
of  special  study  by  a  number  of  brilliant  writers. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  as  time  passes  and  the  brilliant 
students  pass  with  it,  Archbishop  Dubourg  emerges 
from  the  vexatious  conflict  with  his  indomitable 
antagonist,  preserving  his  dignity  and  the  undimin- 
ished respect  of  his  flock,  although  Pere  Antoine  still, 
in  history,  reigns  supreme  over  their  hearts.     - 

Dubourg  became  the  spiritual  guide  of  the  Ursu- 
line  Nuns  while  in  New  Orleans  and,  as  he  had 
assisted  Mrs.  Seton  in  her  work  in  Baltimore,  he 
helped  them  to  estabhsh  their  convent  below  the  city. 

At  the  time  of  the  British  invasion  in  1812,  he 
rendered  such  services  to  the  people  as  to  win  their 
admiration  and  gratitude,  despite  even  the  antagonis- 
tic influence  of  Pere  Antoine  de  Sedilla. 

On  the  day  of  the  battle,  in  the  chapel  of  the 
Ursulines  before  a  congregation  of  frightened  nuns 
and  civilians,  he  celebrated  a  solemn  mass,  of 
supplication  for  the  Almighty's  protection  and  aid, 
the  statue  of  Our  Lady  of  Prompt  Succor  being 
displayed  on  the  altar.  The  guns  of  Chalmette 
could  be  heard  above  the  chanting  of  the  holy  office. 


DUBOURG  403 

At  the  moment  of  the  elevation  of  the  Host,  when 
all  hearts  and  eyes  were  bowed  in  devotion,  a  courier 
from  the  battlefield,  rushing  into  the  church,  pro- 
claimed in  a  loud  voice  'Hhat  the  Americans  were 
victorious." 

In  commemoration  of  this,  by  privilege  granted 
by  Pope  Pius  IX,  an  annual  mass  of  thanksgiving  is 
celebrated  at  the  Ursuline  Chapel.  The  Superior  of 
the  Convent  of  the  Ursuhnes  at  the  time  of  the  Battle 
of  New  Orleans  was,  in  the  world,  Victoire  Olivier  de 
Vezin,  a  direct  descendant  of  the  union  of  the  Du- 
verge  and  Olivier  families,  among  the  very  oldest  in 
Louisiana. 

The  Mother  Superior  not  only  made  a  solemn 
vow  to  commemorate  within  the  convent  walls  the 
God-given  victory,  but  with  her  own  hands  minis- 
tered to  the  wounded  on  both  sides.  She  turned 
the  convent  into  a  hospital,  and  with  the  other 
sisters  tore  up  the  convent  linen  for  bandages  for 
the  wounded  Kentuckians.  The  Kentuckians,  as  a 
token  of  their  gratitude  to  her  for  the  succor  their 
wounded  had  received,  wxre  wont  for  many  years 
afterward  to  send  baskets  of  fruit  to  the  convent 
on  the  anniversary  of  the  battle. 

When,  a  week  later,  the  city  held  its  official  cere- 
mony of  celebration  for  the  victory.  Bishop  Dubourg 
— robed  in  his  vestments  and  followed  by  the  priests 
and  altar  boys  of  the  Cathedral — appeared  at  the 
great  portal  while  from  the  choir  inside  resounded  a 
great  hymn  of  praise,  and  presented  General  Jackson 
with  a  laurel  wreath,  pronouncing  an  address  that  was 
then  and  is  still  considered  a  classic  of  history.  In 
response.  General  Jackson,  for  all  that  he  was  a  plain 
Methodist,  made,  in  words  that  are  also  considered 


404  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS  1 

I 

classical  in  their  chaste  eloquence,  a  pious  return  of  ; 
the  compliment,  waiving  reverentially  all  claim  to  the  i 
victory,  ascribing  it  to  divine  Providence.  ! 

While  in  Rome  in  1815  Dubourg  was  consecrated  ' 
Bishop  of  New  Orleans,  the  first  Bishop  of  American  ; 
New  Orleans,   and  in  France  he  estabhshed   the  i 
Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Faith.     Louis  j 
XVIII  placing  a  vessel  at  his  disposal,  he  returned  to 
America,   and  proceeded   to   St.   Louis,   where  he 
founded   a   college   and   ecclesiastical   seminary  at  I 
the  Barrens  on  the  Missouri.     In  1818  he  began  I 
the  erection  of  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Louis  and  opened  ' 
the  St.  Louis  College  in  1819.     He  also  founded  the 
St.  Louis  Latin  Academy.  i 

In  St.  Louis  he  spent  much  of  his  time  in  the  j 
sparsely  inhabited  frontiers  and  in  the  wilds  of  the  ; 
Indian  settlements.  It  was  said  of  him  that  he  was  I 
as  much  at  home  with  the  Indians  in  their  forest  life  ' 
as  he  was  in  the  archepiscopal  palaces  of  Europe.  I 

Visiting  Washington  thereafter,  he  prevailed  on  i 
the  government  to  co-operate  financially  vdth  him 
in  ameliorating  the  condition  of  the  Indians  in  his 
diocese. 

On  his  return  to  New  Orleans  about  1823,  the 
Ursulines  gave  him  their  convent  for  his  official 
residence,  and  he  remained  with  them  until  he  went 
to  France  in  1826,  w^here  he  was  successively  made 
Bishop  of  Montauban  and  Archbishop  of  Besangon. 
He  died  in  France. 

According  to  his  directions  his  heart  was  sent  to 
the  Ursuline  Sisters  of  New  Orleans.     It  is  still 
piously  preserved  in  its  receptacle  in  a  niche  in  their : 
chapel. 

A   third   son   of   Francois   Pierre   Dubourg   and 

I 


DUBOURG  405 

Marguerite  Vogliizan,  Joseph,  known  as  ''le  beau 
Dubourg,"  came  to  America  and  visited  New 
Orleans,  but  did  not  remain  there.  The  fourth  and 
last  son,  Thomas  Patrice  Dubourg,  had  two  daugh- 
ters, who  were  married  in  Jamaica,  and  one  son, 
Arnould  Dubourg,  who,  after  being  educated  by  his 
uncle  in  Baltimore,  came  to  New  Orleans  to  live. 
He  studied  law  and  was  appointed  judge  in  Plaque- 
mines Parish  in  1815.  Later,  he  held  one  of  the 
judgeships  of  the  city.  The  only  souvenir  of  him  is 
a  stray  number  of  an  old  paper  dated  May  6th, 
1820,  preserved  as  a  curiosity  in  the  Museum  of  the 
Cabildo,  ^TAmi  des  Louis,  the  Friend  of  the  Law — 
printed  in  English  and  French,  according  to  the 
ascription,  by  A.  Dubourg  and  Louis  Cherbonnier." 
The  first  number  of  the  paper  must  have  dated  back 
to  1809,  as  the  copy  in  the  Museum  is  number  2514, 
Vol.  XL  How  long  Arnould  Dubourg  was  joint 
proprietor  of  the  paper  is  not  known.  He  died 
unmarried  in  New  Orleans  in  1829. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 
CHAREST  DE  LAUZON 

FRANCOIS  CHAREST  DE  LAUZON,  of  New 
Orleans,  was  the  son  of  the  last  Seigneur  de 
Lauzon.  His  father  was  the  proprietor  of  the  great 
Seigneurie  de  Lauzon  in  Canada,  which  embraced  a 
lordly  territory  on  the  St.  Lawrence  River  opposite 
Quebec.  He  was  a  young  man  at  the  time  of  the 
English-French  War  in  America,  and  his  home  at 
Point  Levis  was  a  storm  center  during  the  fierce 
struggle. 

The  British  occupied  the  Seigneurie  and  erected 
batteries  at  various  points  to  bombard  Quebec. 
Those  who  were  living  there  at  the  time  witnessed 
across  the  river  the  battle  waged  in  the  vast  amphi- 
theatre of  the  Plains  of  Abraham,  where  Wolfe's 
army  achieved  the  victory  that  gave  Quebec  to  the 
EngHsh.  According  to  the  tradition  of  the  family, 
Wolfe's  body,  after  the  fight,  was  brought  across  the 
St.  Lawrence  and  laid  in  the  home  of  the  Charests  to 
await  its  shipment  to  England  for  final  burial. 

The  Seigneur  de  Lauzon  who,  with  others  of  his 
family,  had  borne  an  honorable  part  in  the  struggle, 
determined  not  to  live  under  British  rule.  He  sold 
the  Seigneurie  to  the  new  British  Governor  of  Que- 
bec, James  Murray,  in  1765,  and  with  his  family 
proceeded  to  France,  where  he  received  high  honors 
from  the  King  in  recognition  of  his  services.  He 
established  a  new  home  at  Loches  in  Touraine. 
Three  of  his  sons,  Etienne,  Frangois  and  Philippe, 

406 


CHAREST  DE  LAUZON  407 

went  to  St.  Domingo  and  bought  estates  there. 
The  estate  of  Etienne  was  called  Charest;  that  of 
Frangois,  Lauzon;  hence  one  brother  was  knoA\Ti  as 
Charest  de  Charest,  the  other  as  Charest  de  Lauzon. 
Philippe  was  called  Charest  de  Levis. 

In  Louisiana  the  family  of  Frangios  was  known 
exclusively  as  de  Lauzon,  but  this  was  considered 
merely  as  "si  nom  de  terre,"  apparently,  for  the 
epitaph  of  his  wife,  in  the  old  St.  Louis  Cemetery, 
bears  only  the  family  name  as  follows:  ''Ci-Git 
Elizabeth  du  Buisson,  veuve  de  Charest,  N^e  au  Cap 
Frangois  (Isle  de  St.  Domingo)  le  30  Aout,  1730. 
Deced^e  le  13  Novembre,  1816.'' 

Charest,  the  eldest  brother,  was  slain  in  the  mas- 
sacre of  the  whites  by  the  negroes  during  the  revolt 
at  St.  Domingo.  Frangois  Charest  de  Lauzon  and 
his  family  escaped  to  Jamaica,  his  youngest  child, 
]\Iarie  Antoinette,  usually  called  Adele,  being  smug- 
gled out  of  the  house  in  a  hogshead. 

Frangois  Charest  de  Lauzon  married  Perrine  de 
Gournay,  the  eldest  daughter  of  Chevalier  Michel 
Isaac  de  Gournay  who,  according  to  his  burial 
certificate,  was  born  in  Brittany  in  1728,  and  was 
descended  from  the  ancient  baronial  house  of  de 
Gournay  of  Normandy  (a  branch  of  which  was  estab- 
hshed  in  England  in  the  time  of  William  the  Con- 
queror) .  Although  he  lost  a  part  of  his  fortune  in  the 
insurrection,  he  yet  preserved  abundant  means  to 
take  with  him  to  Jamaica.  His  youngest  daughter, 
PauUne,  married  ''le  Comte  Roland  Onfroy  de 
Verres."  The  marriage  contract,  preserved  in  the 
archives  of  Jamaica,  contains  a  page  of  titles  and 
nobihty  ascriptions  on  both  sides.  Many  of  de 
Gournay's  slaves  followed  him  to  Jamaica.     He  died 


408  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

there  in  1813,  and  was  buried  in  Holy  Trinity  Cathe- 
dral, Kingston,  Jamaica. 

Frangois  de  Gournay,  the  son  of  Isaac,  came  to 
New  Orleans  and  settled  there.  He  married  and 
had  a  large  family,  and  his  blood  is  represented  in 
many  branches  in  New  Orleans.  His  granddaughter, 
the  daughter  of  Charest  de  Lauzon,  married  Michel 
Dubourg  de  Ste.  Colombe  in  Jamaica,  who  came 
also  to  New  Orleans  and  lived  with  his  father-in-law 
in  the  house  on  Dumaine  Street. 

The  house  is  still  standing,  but  it  is  indistinguish- 
able from  the  others  erected  about  the  same  time. 
Dumaine  Street  at  that  time  was  the  aristocratic 
center  of  life  in  the  city,  as  Orleans  Street  became 
later.  Of  all  the  streets  of  the  ^Tieu  Carre,'' 
Dumaine  has  best  preserved  its  original  appearance. 
A  stroll  along  its  "banquettes"  from  Eoyal  to  Dau- 
phine  Street  is  like  reading  a  page  from  an  original 
manuscript  written  during  the  last  days  of  the 
Spanish  Domination  and  the  first  days  of  the 
American.  If  ghosts  ever  haunted  the  old  dwelKngs 
of  a  city,  they  would  hover  around  Dumaine  Street, 
but  straining  eyes  discover  naught  but  the  reaUty 
of  to-day — the  tenements  and  shops  of  Italians  and 
Spaniards,  who  are  camping,  as  it  were,  amid  the 
tombs  of  an  ancient  cemetery. 

Frangois  de  Charest  de  Lauzon  lived  until  1819 
and  was  buried  in  the  old  St.  Louis  Cemetery: 
'^Ci-git  Frangois  de  Charest  de  Lauzon  nee  a  Quebec 
au  Canada  le  12  d^cembre,  1744;  deced6  le  ler. 
f^vrier,  1819." 

His  death,  as  related  in  the  family,  was  a  pathetic 
one.  Of  his  three  children  who  had  accompanied 
him  to  Louisiana  not  one  was  with  him.   His  eldest 


CHAREST  DE  LAUZON  409 

daughter,  Etiennette,  who  had  married  du  Bourg, 
had  died  in  1811;  his  only  son,  Bien  Aim6,  had 
been  killed  in  a  duel ;  and  now  his  youngest  daughter, 
Marie  Antoinette,  or  ''Adele,"  had  gone  to  join  her 
husband,  Jean  Baptiste  Thibaut,  in  Cuba. 

The  ship  on  which  Madame  Thibaut  and  her  chil- 
dren had  sailed  was  detained  at  the  mouth  of  the 
river  by  unfavorable  winds  for  so  long  a  time  that  tlic 
journey  was  at  last  abandoned  and  it  returned  to 
the  cit}^  There  were  no  conveniences,  then,  of 
telephone  or  telegraph,  and  Adele  had  no  thought 
but  to  reach  home  and  her  father  as  quickly  as 
possible.  He  was  seated  in  his  armchair  in  the 
courtyard  of  his  home  in  Dumaine  Street,  when  she 
suddenly  appeared  before  him.  He  struggled  to  his 
feet  to  embrace  her — his  face,  his  whole  demeanor, 
expressed  overwhelming  joy,  and  then  he  fell  back 
in  his  chair — dead.  Adele  set  out  for  Cuba  again 
and  reached  her  plantation  near  Santiago  just  in 
time  to  see  her  husband  expire.  After  residing 
there  a  short  while,  she  returned  to  New  Orleans, 
leaving  her  plantation  under  the  management  of  her 
uncle,  Frangois  de  Gournay. 

Bien  Aim6  de  Lauzon  was  born  in  St.  Domingo 
and  was  brought  by  his  parents  to  New  Orleans  and 
Uved  with  them  in  Dumaine  Street.  He  has  unfor- 
tunately left  but  one  record  of  himself  in  history — 
the  duel  in  which  he  lost  his  life.  He  had  taken  his 
sister  to  a  ball  at  the  old  Salle  d'Orl^ans,  where  the 
briUiant  society  balls  of  a  century  ago  took  place, 
The  room  was  crowded,  and  to  procure  a  chair  for  his 
sister  (the  ladies  after  each  dance  returned  to  their 
places  in  a  row  of  chairs  extending  round  three  sides 
of  the  room),  Bien  Amie  seized  one  a  few  paces 


410  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

away,  and  passed  it  over  the  head  of  a  young  lady 
sitting  there.  She,  starting  up,  affected  great  nerv- 
ousness and  alarm  (the  ladies  of  Bien  Aim^'s  family 
insist  upon  the  affectation,  for  there  was  no  occasion 
for  nervousness  or  alarm),  and  the  gentleman  who 
had  escorted  her  to  her  place  felt  called  upon  to 
interfere.  His  remarks  about  the  trifling  incident 
were  such  that  Bien  Aime  at  once  invited  him  to  the 
balcony  in  front  of  the  ballroom,  where  words  ensued 
that  were  followed  by  the  gentleman  brushing  Bien 
Aim6  across  the  face  with  his  glove.  A  duel  after 
this  was  inevitable — in  fact  imperative.  It  was 
arranged  for  the  next  day.  The  ladies  of  the  family 
had,  naturally,  been  kept  in  ignorance  of  it.  On  the 
next  afternoon,  Madame  de  Lauzon,  the  mother  of 
Bien  Aim^,  and  others  of  the  family  were  seated  on 
chairs  placed  before  the  house  on  the  *' banquette,'^ 
as  was  the  Latin  custom  of  the  day,  in  order  to  enjoy 
the  fresh  air.  From  passers-by  in  the  street,  Madame 
de  Lauzon  heard  these  words: 

^That  is  sad  about  Bien  Aim6  de  Lauzon.'* 

''What's  the  matter?'' 

''Haven't  you  heard?  He  has  been  killed  in  a  duel, 
and  they  are  bringing  in  his  body." 

The  shock  almost  killed  the  mother.  No  one  had 
the  courage  to  tell  Adele.  She  was  to  attend  a  ball 
that  evening,  and  was  allowed  to  make  her  prepara- 
tions in  ignorance  of  his  fate.  She  actually  went  to 
the  ball,  no  one  daring  to  break  the  news  to  her. 

The  Salle  d'0rl6ans  is  still  standing  on  Orleans 
Street.  It  is  now  a  convent  for  colored  ''Sisters." 
Little  alteration  has  been  made  in  the  place.  A 
balcony,  as  a  century  ago,  runs  across  the  front  (the 


i 


CHAREST  DE  LA  UZON  4 1 1 

balcony  to  which  Bien  Aim6  and  his  antagonist 
retired) . 

The  act  of  burial  of  Bien  Aim6  is  not  recorded  in 
the  Cathedral.  Its  absence  is  explained  by  the  fact 
that  the  last  rites  of  the  church  were  accorded  only 
to  those  who  had  received  the  sacraments,  and  Bien 
Aini6  fell  dead  at  the  first  fire  of  his  opponent.  He 
was  buried,  however,  in  consecrated  ground  in  the 
St.  Louis  Cemetery.  Even  the  date  of  his  death 
has  not  been  preserved.  But  in  the  burial  notice  of 
his  sister,  Madame  du  Bourg  de  Saint  Colombe,  in 
1811,  it  was  stated  that  "ses  cendres  ont  6te  expos^es 
preiscelles  de  son  frere." 

In  the  old  cemetery,  the  frequent  inscription, 
^']\Iort  sur  le  champ  d'honneur"  or  'S^ictime  de 
rhonneur"  show  that  the  family  of  those  killed  in 
duels  considered  this  mode  of  death  an  honorable 
one.  All  that  was  told  by  the  witnesses  of  the  affair 
was  that  Bien  Aim^  fell  at  the  first  fire,  shot  through 
the  heart,  and  that  he  had  fired  wildly.  The  dueling 
pistols  used  still  exist  in  the  family.  They  are  of  the 
finest  English  make.  They  w^ere  lent,  it  is  said,  for 
three  different  duels,  with  the  result  of  death  in  each 
duel.  After  Bien  Aime's  death  they  were  boxed 
and  never  used  again.  They  are  now  the  property 
of  Charles  Thibaut,  Esq.,  Harvard  University. 

Madame  Lauzon  lived  after  her  son's  death  to  an 
advanced  age,  dying  when  about  ninety.  Like  her 
husband,  she  died  in  her  chair.  At  the  time  she 
was  the  guest  of  her  grandson,  Arthur  Thibaut,  hav- 
ing just  arrived  from  her  daughter's  plantation,  the 
Hermitage.  An  informal  entertainment  was  being 
given  and  refreshments  were  served.    The  old  lady 


412  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

partook  of  them  and,  laughingly  remarking  as  she 
held  up  her  hands  that  her  fingers  were  sticky  from 
eating  bonbons,  retired  to  her  room  to  wash  them. 
Her  maid  accompanied  her  and  left  her  while  she 
went  downstairs  for  warm  water.  On  her  return 
she  found  Madame  Lauzon  in  her  chair,  asleep, 
as  she  thought.  In  truth  she  was  dead.  Her  tomb 
also  is  in  the  old  St.  Louis  Cemetery. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 
BRINGIER 

THE  Bringier  family,  whose  name  runs  like  a 
golden  tracery  over  the  society  of  New  Orleans 
during  the  nineteenth  century,  came  into  the  colony 
during  the  very  latest  years  of  the  Spanish  Domina- 
tion. 

Emmanuel  Marius  Pons  Bringier,*  of  La  Cadiere, 
near  Aubagne,  was  the  first  to  settle  here.  From  a 
letter  written  by  the  '^Chanoine  Jean  Baptiste 
HypoHte  Bringier,"  of  the  Marseilles  Cathedral,  to  a 
Louisiana  nephew,  we  learn  that  the  Bringier  family 
of  Louisiana  descends  from  Ignace  Bringier,  a  Judge 
of  Limagne  (ancien  pays  d'Auvergne),  who  was  the 
father  of  Jean  Bringier.  He  married  Marie  Doura- 
don,  daughter  of  Baron  Douradon  of  Auvergne. 
They  were  the  parents  of  Pierre  Bringier,  the  father 
of  Emmanuel  Marius  Pons.  Pierre  Bringier  had  an 
enormous  family,  which  gave  rise  to  the  jeu  d^esprit 
that  he  was  the  ^'father  of  nineteen  sons  and  one 
canon."  The  canon  of  the  Marseilles  Cathedral  was 
the  younger  brother  of  Emmanuel  Marius  Pons,  and 
had  been  an  Emigre  during  the  French  Revolution. 

Emmanuel  Marius  Pons  left  France  in  1780, 
sailing  in  his  own  vessel  with  his  young  wife,  Marie 

*  Taken  chiefly  from  the  manuscript  notes  of  Trist  Wood,  Esq.i 
a  descendant  of  Marius  Pons  Bringier,  who  kindly  loaned  them  to 
the  author. 

413 


414  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Frangoise  Durand,  to  Martinique,  where  he  and  his 
brother  Vincent  became  associated  in  business 
on  a  plantation.  But  not  agreeing  well  as  part- 
ners, they  separated.  Vincent  lost  his  life  in  a 
shipwreck.  Marius  Pons,  quitting  Martinique, 
embarked  again  in  his  own  vessel  with  his  wife, 
slaves  and  household  effects,  and  came  to  Louisiana. 
He  acquired  a  plantation  in  the  rich  Tchoupitoulas 
district  above  New  Orleans.  Abandoning  the  place 
shortly  afterwards,  on  account  of  the  crevasses, 
Bringier  moved  to  the  Parish  of  St.  James  in  1785, 
where  he  bought,  successively,  five  plantations  and, 
throwing  them  into  one,  formed  the  famous  Maison 
Blanche  or  White  Hall  plantation,  which  according 
to  all  accounts  must  be  pronounced  to  be  incontest- 
ably  the  greatest  plantation  Louisiana  ever  held. 

What  would  be  to-day  a  most  valuable  record  of 
it,  and  a  precious  document  in  every  way,  has,  to 
the  enduring  regret  of  local  historians,  been  lost. 
This  was  the  ' 'Memoir"  of  Augustin,  one  of  the  old 
Bringier  slaves,  which  he  dictated  to  one  of  his  mis- 
tresses, Madame  Aurore  Trudeau,  who  wrote  it  down 
in  his  patois,  just  as  he  spoke  it.  Only  a  vague 
reminiscence  of  it  exists. 

As  traveling  in  the  early  days  was  done  entirely 
upon  the  highroad  running  along  the  river  bank, 
and  no  inns  were  in  existence  for  the  accommodation 
of  wayfarers,  the  custom  was  for  them  to  turn  into 
any  plantation  they  were  passing  and  ask  for  hospi- 
taUty  for  the  night — hospitaUty  that  was  never 
refused.  Bringier,  who  could  not  but  do  things 
magnificently,  improved  upon  this  custom,  as 
Augustin  related  it.  He  had  outhouses  built  for  the 
accommodation  of  passing  strangers,  with  beds  pre- 


II 


BRING  I ER  415 

pared  and  meals  ready  and  slaves  in  attendance  for 
them.  Any  stranger  was  made  welcome.  The  rule  at 
White  Hall  was  not  to  ask  his  name  or  seek  in  any 
way  to  discover  his  identity,  unless  he  chose  to  divulge 
them.  He  came  and  went  as  an  unknown  bird  of 
passage  might,  but  departed,  rested  and  refreshed, 
his  clothes  cleaned  and  brushed,  his  linen  washed. 
The  enormous  amount  of  provisions  laid  up  in  the 
plantation  storehouses  for  this  wholesale  entertain- 
ment at  Maisou  Blanche  became  a  byword  among  the 
negroes,  whose  pride  in  it  led  them  to  exaggerate  its 
quantity  until,  in  truth,  it  became  laughably  absurd 
in  its  proportions. 

The  town  house  of  the  Bringiers,  to  which  they 
came  every  winter,  was  on  Canal  Street;  one  of  the 
three  old  houses,  still  remembered,  built  ahke  with 
massive  Corinthian  columns  in  front,  called  ''the 
Three  Sisters."  One  of  these  was  subsequently 
converted  into  ''The  Grand  Opera  House."  The 
Audubon  Row  occupies  now  the  site  of  it. 

^'Melpomene"  was  their  next  place  of  residence  in 
town.  It  had  been  owned  previously  by  Seaman 
Field,  the  brother-in-law  of  Aglae  Dubourg  Bringier. 
The  name  w^as  always  known  as  Melpomene  (pro- 
nounced in  French),  strangely  enough  before  the 
street  received  its  name  in  the  due  series  of  the 
Muses.  Carondelet  at  that  time  was  Apollo  Street, 
a  mere  road  through  the  bare  country,  with  but  one 
or  two  houses  built  on  it.  "Visiting  the  city"  was 
the  term  used  for  going  to  Canal  Street. 

The  eldest  son,  Michel  Doradou  Bringier,  born 
on  the  plantation,  was  sent  to  Paris  for  his  educa- 
tion. On  his  return  to  America  he  passed  through 
Baltimore  and  was  married  to  Aglae  Dubourg,  who. 


416  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

as  we  have  seen,  had  been  placed  in  the  convent  there 
under  Mrs.  Seton  for  her  education,  and  who  was  but 
fourteen  years  old.  The  marriage  took  place  in 
Baltimore,  where  it  created  a  great  sensation  on 
account  of  the  remarkable  beauty  and  the  extreme 
youthfulness  of  the  bride,  but  it  was  understood  that 
it  had  been  arranged  by  her  uncle,  the  abbe,  during 
a  visit  to  New  Orleans,  with  the  full  agreement  of 
both  families. 

Doradou  Bringier  had  never  seen  his  bride  before 
the  ceremony  except  once,  when,  as  a  very  small  girl, 
she  passed  through  New  Orleans  on  her  way  to 
Baltimore.  He  declared  then  that  she  was  the  most 
beautiful  child  he  had  ever  seen,  and  that  he  had 
fallen  in  love  with  her.  Hermitage  plantation  was 
given  the  couple,  and  as  a  wedding  present  the  bride 
received  a  beautiful  doll.  She  remarked  that  she 
did  not  know  whether  it  was  meant  for  her  or  for  her 
first  baby. 

The  marriage  turned  out  to  be  a  very  happy  one. 
Agla6  lived  to  an  extreme  old  age,  preserving  her 
charm  and  beauty  to  the  last.  She  died  in  1878  in 
her  town  house,  ' 'Melpomene,"  surrounded  by  her 
children  and  grandchildren. 

The  eldest  daughter  of  Agla6  and  Michel  Doradou 
Bringier,  Rosella,  married  Hone  Browze  Trist,  the 
kinsman  and  ward  of  Thomas  Jefferson;  he  became 
first  American  Collector  of  the  Port  of  New  Orleans; 
the  youngest,  Myrthe,  married  Richard  Taylor,  son 
of  President  Zachary  Taylor,  who  became  during 
the  Civil  War  the  dashing  General  Dick  Taylor.* 

*  "Dick"  Taylor,  the  son  of  Zachary  Taylor,  was  born  in 'Louisiana 
in  1826.  After  the  Battle  of  Baton  Rouge,  in  the  Civil  War,  he  was 
appointed  to  the  command  of  the  District  of  Louisiana,  having 


BRINGIER  417 

Octavie  married  General  Allen  Thomas,  at  one  time 
United  States  Minister  to  Venezuela.  Louise  mar- 
ried Martin  Gordon,  of  New  Orleans. 

Nanine,  the  third  daughter,  married  the  Hon. 
Duncan  F.  Kenner  who,  looked  back  upon  from  the 
present  times,  looms  up  among  the  men  of  his  day 
as  a  giant  in  intellect  and  force  of  character.  He  had 
a  large  family,  but  only  two  daughters  and  one  son 
reached  maturity.  His  eldest  daughter,  Rosella, 
married  General  Joseph  Brent,  of  Baltimore.  Their 
daughter,  Nanine,  is  the  wife  of  Thomas  Sloo,  Esq., 
of  New  Orleans. 

One  of  the  daughters  of  Marius  Pons  Bringier, 
Frangoise,  married  ^^Christophe  Colomb,''  who 
claimed  descent  from  the  great  discoverer.  Living 
in  France,  he  had  become  involved  in  some  plot 
during  the  French  Revolution  and  had  made  his 
escape  to  St.  Domingo  disguised  as  a  cook.  But  the 
insurrection  and  massacre  there  forced  him  again 
to  fly.  He  came,  as  all  the  St.  Domingo  refugees 
did  at  that  time,  to  New  Orleans,  and,  as  Trist  Woods 
describes  it,  gravitated  to  St.  James  Parish  and  to 
White  Hall  plantation.  He  there  married  Frangoise 
Bringier  and  became  the  proprietor  of  Bocage  plan- 
tation, but  instead  of  cultivating  his  fields,  he  spent, 

already  served  with  distinction  in  Virginia.  His  campaign  in  Upper 
Louisiana  and  on  Red  River  was  one  of  the  brilKant  mihtary  episodes 
of  the  Confederate  War.  After  the  close  of  the  war  he  returned  to 
New  Orleans  and  lived  with  his  family  in  the  old  Melpomene  Street 
house.  He  had  three  daughters;  one  of  them,  Bettie,  married 
Walter  R.  Stauffer;  her  sister,  Myrth6,  Isaac  H.  Stauffer— sons  of 
the  prominent  and  wealthy  merchant  and  philanthropist,  Isaac 
Stauffer,  of  New  Orleans.  The  children  of  both  sisters  still  proudly 
maintain  the  prestige  of  their  blood  and  name  in  New  Orleans. 
Louisette,  the  eldest  daughter,  died  unmarried. 


418  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

we  are  told,  the  rest  of  his  life  cultivating  the  Muses. 
On  moonlight  nights  he  would  betake  himself  to  his 
boat  or  ornamental  barge,  ordering  his  men  to  row 
him  up  and  down  the  Mississippi  and,  reclining  on 
cushions  beneath  a  fringed  canopy,  would  pick  his 
guitar  and  sing  serenades  to  the  moon.  His  wife, 
on  the  contrary,  with  the  Bringier  talent  for  busi- 
ness, mounting  her  horse  at  daylight,  would  ride 
over  the  plantation  directing  the  work  of  the  slaves. 
But  husband  and  wife  got  on  together  famously, 
says  the  story — he  wooing  the  Muses,  she  managing 
Bocage. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 
TUREAUD 

THE  Tureaud  family  were  originally  Huguenots, 
but  they  became  Catholics  before  emigrating 
from  France.  The  first  Tureaud  known  in  Louisiana 
was  Augustin  Dominique,  born  in  St.  Sauveur  Parish, 
la  Rochelle,  in  1764,  the  son  of  Jacques  Tureaud, 
"courtier,"  and  of  Frangoise  Guillon.  He  received 
a  collegiate  education,  was  dashing  in  conduct, 
talented  and  good  looking,  and,  consequently,  as  we 
might  say,  became  involved  in  a  love  scrape  which 
brought  about  his  being  sent  by  his  father  to  St. 
Domingo  to  take  charge  of  a  plantation  he  owned 
there. 

In  the  revolt  of  the  negroes  and  the  bloody  mas- 
sacre of  the  whites,  Tureaud  was  saved  by  the 
ingratiating  quahties  that  distinguished  him  through 
hfe.  His  housekeeper,  a  mulatress,  the  wife  of  one 
of  the  ringleaders  of  the  revolt,  who  knew  therefore 
in  advance  what  was  impending,  led  him  to  the  shore, 
where  she  had  secreted  a  boat,  and  embarked  in  it 
with  him  and  her  two  children.  The  cold  was 
intense,  the  boat  was  an  open  one  and  all  were  thinly 
clad.  They  suffered  cruelly.  One  of  the  children 
died  on  the  second  day  out.  The  mother  threw  it 
overboard,  and  the  little  skiff  drifted  about  at  sea 
until  it  was  picked  up  by  a  vessel  bound  for  Balti- 
more. Tureaud  by  this  time  was  lying  unconscious 
in  the  boat.     He  always  said  that  he  had  no  idea 

419 


420  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

what  could  have  influenced  the  mulatress  to  save  his 
Hfe  except  an  act  of  unconscious  poUteness  on  his 
part.  When  he  came  from  France,  ignorant  of  the 
customs  of  Martinique,  he  addressed  the  house- 
keeper as  ^'madame/'  and  although  he  does  not  say- 
so,  he  most  hkely  treated  her  with  the  consideration 
due  a  ^'madame." 

A  commission  house  in  Baltimore  received  the 
refugee  and  communicated  the  fact  to  Tureaud's 
father  in  France,  who  remitted  funds  for  his  son's 
expenses,  asking  the  firm  to  keep  him  in  America. 
The  surviving  child  of  the  ringleader  and  mulatress, 
although  free,  served  in  the  Tureaud  family,  and  his 
children  were  given  European  educations  and  subse- 
quently returned  to  New  Orleans,  where  they  held 
good  business  positions. 

Tureaud,  after  settling  in  Baltimore,  made  a 
number  of  voyages.  In  his  diary  he  tells  of  being 
shipwrecked  in  the  Pacific  and  residing  with  the 
Baron  de  Cambefort  at  the  Mole  of  St.  Nicholas,  but 
unfortunately  only  one  section  of  his  diary  has  been 
preserved,  that  relating  to  1801  and  1802.  This  is  full 
of  the  exciting  adventures,  love  affairs,  etc.,  that  be- 
fell amateur  knight-errants  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
at  that  time.  Once  he  was  captured  with  his  vessel 
by  the  English,  once  drifting  about  with  a  crew  help- 
less from  yellow  fever,  he  put  in  to  Vera  Cruz  for 
relief  and,  being  refused  by  the  authorities  there, 
he  sailed  for  New  Orleans  where  his  greatest  adven- 
ture yet  awaited  him,  for  he  met  Marius  Pons 
Bringier,  who  invited  him  to  his  plantation.  White 
Hall,  taking  him  up  to  it  in  his  cabriolet.  There 
his  visit  having  terminated,  he  was  about  to  leave 
when  a  heavy  rain  fell  flooding  the  roads  and  de-j 


TUREAUD  421 

taining  him  a  few  days  longer.  His  host,  more 
and  more  pleased  with  his  agreeable  guest  and  more 
and  more  reluctant  to  part  with  him,  yielded  at  last 
to  temptation  and  one  day  a  propos  of  nothing 
offered  him  the  hand  of  his  daughter  Fanny.  Natur- 
ally, according  to  French  customs,  there  were  pre- 
liminary conditions  connected  with  business  to  be 
arranged,  but  they  were  settled  in  a  satisfactory  way 
and  the  young  man,  duly  accepting  and  accepted, 
was,  as  he  wrote  in  his  diary,  raised  to  the  seventh 
heaven  of  bUss  over  his  good  fortune.  Fanny  was 
only  thirteen  and,  he  confesses,  not  beautiful,  but 
she  was  the  daughter  of  the  owner  of  magnificent 
White  Hall!  Tureaud  returned  to  New  Orleans 
where,  he  writes,  congratulations  were  showered 
upon  him.  He  went  back  to  Baltimore  and  a  year 
later  presented  himself  to  claim  his  bride. 

Fanny  did  not  keep  a  diary,  but  her  account  of  the 
affair  has  come  down  to  us  nevertheless.  She  was 
in  her  room  dreaming,  as  girls  do,  of  her  ideal  in  love 
and  indulging  in  the  usual  romantic  visions  of  mar- 
riage, when  her  father  summoned  her  to  his  presence, 
and  informed  her  that  her  hand  had  been  promised 
to  Monsieur  Tureaud.  She  went  almost  into  a  state 
of  collapse,  but  managed  to  stammer  out  that  she 
bowed  to  the  will  of  her  father.  Then,  hastening  to 
her  room,  she  gave  herself  up  to  the  wildest  grief  and 
indignation  that  she  was  to  be  given  away  to  an  old, 
gray-haired  man.  Tureaud  was  then  thirty-eight 
years  old,  but  this  was,  of  course,  aged  to  the  eyes  of 
thirteen,  and  his  hair  had  turned  gray  when  he  fled 
from  St.  Domingo. 

The  marriage  was  celebrated  at  White  Hall  in 
1803.     While  preparations  for  the  ceremony  were 


422  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

being  made,  the  rebellious  little  bride  spent  her  time 
weeping  in  her  room,  but  in  spite  of  her  fears  the 
union  turned  out  to  be  the  ideal  one  she  had  dreamed 
of. 

Her  father  gave  her  ^ 'Union' ^  plantation  (so 
named  for  the  happy  event)  as  a  wedding  gift.  The 
Ufe  spent  there  for  both  was  a  very  happy  one. 
Tureaud  became  a  judge  in  the  parish  of  St.  James 
and  during  the  Civil  War  served  as  Captain  of 
Cavalry.  But  the  bold,  high-spirited  daredevil  of 
the  diary  suffered  miserably  in  his  old  age  from  the 
effect  of  a  wound  supposed  to  have  been  received 
in  a  duel.  He  died  at  ''Union''  plantation  in  1826. 

He  had  sent  to  France  for  his  nephew,  Jean  Fran- 
gois  Theodore  Tureaud,  to  join  him  in  Louisiana. 

Theodore,  born  in  Rochefort  in  1791,  had  served 
in  Napoleon's  army,  and  was  in  the  Treasury  Depart- 
ment of  the  Marine  in  1812.  He  arrived  in  Louisiana 
in  1814,  and  was  followed,  a  year  or  two  later,  by  his 
mother  and  two  sisters.  He  became  a  Notary 
Pubhc  in  New  Orleans,  and  married  Claire  Conand, 
daughter  of  Dr.  Joseph  Conand  of  the  same  city. 
They  founded  a  second  Une  of  Tureauds  in  Louisiana. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

GARRIGUES  DE   FLAUGEAC— DE  ROALDES 

■p^E  FLAUGEAC'S  name  has  been  written  in  the 
J-^  history  of  Louisiana  by  the  hand  of  General 
Jackson  himself.  In  an  order  of  the  day  after 
Chalmette,  Jackson  cited  him  particularly  ''for  dis- 
daining the  exemption  afforded  by  his  seat  in  the 
Senate,  and  offering  himself  for  the  service  of  his 
country.  He  continued  in  this  subordinate  but 
honorable  station,  and  by  his  example  as  well  as 
exertions  has  rendered  essential  service  to  the 
country." 
As  Gayarr^  describes  it: 

"A  little  before  daybreak,  on  the  eighth  of  January,  as  soon  as 
there  was  sufficient  light  for  observation  ...  a  congreve  rocket 
went  up.  It  was  the  signal  for  attack.  The  British,  giving  three 
cheers,  formed  into  close  column  of  about  sixty  men  in  front  and 
advanced  in  splendid  order,  chiefly  upon  the  battery  commanded 
by  Garrigues  de  Flaugeac,  which  consisted  of  a  brass  twelve- 
pounder,  supported  on  its  left  by  an  insignificant  battery  with  a 
small  brass  coronade;  on  the  right  was  the  artillery  commanded 
by  United  States  officers.  An  obhque  movement  was  made  to 
avoid  the  terrible  fire  of  the  Flaugeac  battery,  from  which  every 
discharge  seemed  to  tear  open  the  column,  and  sweep  away  whole 
files." 

The  gallant  Frenchman,  we  are  told,  was  a  born 
fighter.  Before  coming  to  Louisiana  he  had  drawn 
his  sword  under  RepubUc,  Consulate  and  Directory; 
and  had  sheathed  it  and  come  to  Louisiana  only  when 

423 


V 


424  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

there  seemed  no  further  prospect  for  its  use  in  France. 
He  settled  in  Opelousas,  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
and  fertile  parishes  in  the  State,  married  there  and 
devoted  himself  to  the  development  of  a  large 
plantation.  This  was  during  the  halcyon  days  of 
Louisiana,  before  poHtics  infested  the  ways  of  public 
life,  and  a  man^s  worth  to  his  State  was  not  measured 
by  party  balances.  Thus,  such  a  man  as  de  Flau- 
geac  was  elected  to  the  Legislature  as  Senator. 

The  House  was  in  session  when  the  British  effected 
their  landing  in  Louisiana,  and  with  their  gunboats 
dominated  the  lake  and  commanded  all  approaches 
to  the  city.  There  was  a  moment  of  panic  and 
demorahzation  in  the  city.  The  Governor  sent  a 
message  to  the  Legislature  suggesting  the  expediency 
of  adjourning  for  a  specified  time.  The  House 
considered  an  adjournment  inexpedient  and  highly 
dangerous.  Jackson,  suspicious  at  this  time  of  the 
Creoles,  was  anxious  not  only  for  the  adjournment 
but  for  the  suspension  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus. 
The  House  was  firm  in  its  belief  that  this  would  be 
unsafe,  and  Jackson  issued  a  general  order  putting 
the  city  of  New  Orleans  under  martial  law.  It  was 
in  this  moment  of  tension  that  de  Flaugeac  settled 
the  question  for  himself  by  resigning  his  seat  to 
volunteer  on  the  field  of  battle;  commending  himself, 
as  we  have  seen,  in  the  best  way  to  the  good  opinion 
of  the  general  in  command.  After  the  battle  he 
disappeared  from  the  city  and  merged  his  life  again 
in  the  interests  of  his  plantation. 

De  Roaldes  was  his  nephew,  the  son  of  his  brother- 
in-law,  who  had  been  persuaded  by  de  Flaugeac ^s 
letters  to  leave  France  for  Louisiana.  De  Flaugeac 
had  married  a  de  Roaldes.    The  wife  of  de  Roaldes 


GARRIGUES  DE  FLAUGEAC—DE  RO AIDES       425 

was  Coralie  Testas  de  Folmont,  of  the  Chdteau 
de  Folmont,  near  Cahors,  whose  family  had  been 
known  in  France  since  the  Crusades. 

After  a  short  trial  of  country  life,  de  Roaldes  left 
Opelousas  and  came  to  New  Orleans,  where  he  prac- 
tised medicine  for  thirty  years.  His  eldest  son, 
Arthur,  he  sent  to  France  for  his  medical  education. 
The  young  man  was  engaged  in  his  studies  when  the 
Franco-Prussian  War  broke  out,  and  volunteered  in 
the  Sixth  International  Ambulance  Corps.  He  was 
in  the  service  of  the  Red  Cross,  in  a  deserted  mill 
used  as  a  hospital,  near  the  River  Meuse,  and  in  close 
proximity  to  a  pontoon  bridge  over  which  Mac- 
INIahon's  corps  was  retreating  before  the  rapid 
advance  of  the  Prussians,  who  were  firing  across  the 
bridge  regardless  of  the  hospital  work  in  the  factory, 
filled  with  wounded  and  dying  men.  In  his  official 
report,  the  Surgeon-in-Chief  gives  the  best  account 
of  what  followed : 

"Mons.  de  Roaldes  charged  himself  with  the  perilous  mission  of 
planting  our  flag  upon  the  roof  of  the  house;  a  heroic  action,  which 
caused  the  enemy  to  stop  firing  against  us,  at  the  sight  of  the  inter- 
national colors." 

For  his  gallant  conduct  the  French  Government 
offered  de  Roaldes  the  Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor, 
but  at  that  time  it  was  considered  to  be  the  duty  of 
Americans  to  wear  no  foreign  decorations  and  the 
young  man  dechned  it. 

He  returned  to  New  Orleans,  equipped  for  his 
profession  with  a  brilfiant  record  as  a  man  of  nerve 
and  action.  He  devoted  himself  to  the  special  study 
of  the  eye,  ear,  nose  and  throat,  and  soon  made  him- 
self known  as  a  specialist  of  brilliant  abilities  in  the 
medical  world. 


426  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

De  Roaldes  lived  in  the  part  of  the  city  inhabited 
principally  by  French,  Spanish  and  Italian  immi- 
grants, and  he  was  brought  face  to  face  with 
their  teeming  families  whose  children  and  babies 
were  in  sore  need  of  special  treatment  beyond  the 
means  and  intelHgence  of  their  poor,  ignorant  par- 
ents, with  no  relief  possible  except  that  offered  by 
the  general  treatment  of  the  overcrowded  Charity 
Hospital,  with  its  care  for  all  the  sick  and  wounded 
of  three  neighboring  States. 

De  Roaldes,  by  degrees,  was  turned  more  and  more 
into  the  highways  and  byways  of  charity,  opening 
his  office,  and  giving  his  rare  surgical  skill  and  his 
great  gift  as  a  diagnostician  to  the  helpless  and 
miserable  mothers  who  brought  their  children  to  him. 

The  numbers  that  came  or  were  brought  to  him 
soon  overspread  the  limit  of  one  man's  time  and 
attention.  He  associated  others  with  him — young 
students  who  were  glad  to  assist  him  for  the  oppor- 
tunity of  studying  under  him.  With  his  hand  to 
the  plow,  never  looking  back  or  releasing  his  hold, 
he  traced  the  furrow  that  led  to  its  predestined 
stopping  place — the  organizing  of  a  scientific  insti- 
tution for  the  treatment  of  diseases  of  the  eye,  ear, 
nose  and  throat,  where  the  poor,  without  pay,  could 
seek  and  find  the  care  and  advice  usually  reserved 
to  the  rich. 

The  furrow  was  a  long  one  and  the  years  were 
heavy  with  work  and  fatigue  before  the  end  appeared; 
he  was  forced  to  appeal  for  money  to  accomplish 
properly  what  he  had  in  mind.  The  money  came, 
as  he  knew  it  would  come,  for  the  heart  that  con- 
ceives great  designs  is  the  heart  that  never  despairs. 
At  first,  it  came  in  scant  driblets.    The  poor  about 


GARRIGUES  DE  FLAUGEAC—DE  RO AIDES       427 

him,  knowing  him,  brought  their  mites.  The  coun- 
try parishes  responded,  for  they  had  sent  their  aihng 
children  to  him  in  the  past.  The  negroes  gave  too — 
and  it  was  the  first  time  in  history  that  they  recog- 
nized their  responsibihty  toward  maintaining  civic 
institutions.  By  the  time  the  rich  felt  the  urge  to 
give  their  large  donations  and  legacies,  the  founda- 
tions were  assured;  that  is,  a  building  had  been 
rented.  A  great  and  adequate  building,  with  full 
surgical  equipment,  now  stands  in  the  heart  of  the 
city. 

But  the  story  ends  in  the  saddest  of  all  tragedies, 
as  human  eyes  see  it.  The  Healer  himself  went 
unhealed.  He  who  had  restored  the  eyesight  to 
countless  others  suffered  himself  years  of  hopeless 
blindness.  At  first,  with  his  clear  knowledge  and 
unerring  skill,  he  was  able,  as  he  said,  to  see  with  his 
fingers;  and  he  still  remained  at  his  post,  directing 
consultations;  going  to  the  hospital,  which  in  truth 
was  called  ''his  hospital"  every  day;  working  for  it 
until  paralysis  fell  upon  him;  and  as  he  could  no 
longer  see,  now  he  could  no  longer  move. 

To  mention  family  distinction  after  such  a  record 
is  paltry.  But  although  good  wine  needs  no  bush, 
a  bush  that  produces  the  best  of  wine  merits 
acknowledgment. 

The  de  Roaldes  belong  to  one  of  the  old  families  of 
France  always  known  for  loyalty  to  Church  and 
King.  The  chateau  at  Cahors,  the  family  home, 
is  still  the  family  home,  but  on  account  of  its  great 
historic  and  artistic  value  it  has  been  classified  by 
the  government  as  an  historic  monument,  and  taken 
over  by  it  for  preservation. 

Frangois  de  Roaldes  was  reputed  the  greatest 


428  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

scholar  of  his  time  (1519-1589).  His  cousin  and 
pupil,  Frangois  II  de  Roaldes,  had  so  great  a  reputa- 
tion that  colleges  disputed  for  the  honor  of  possessing 
him,  Toulouse  finally  gaining  the  prize.  In  the 
''Memoires  Historiques"  *  is  preserved  the  following 
letter  from  Henry  IV: 

"Mons.  de  Roaldes,  the  name  whicfo  you  have  won  among  men  of 
letters,  makes  me  desire  to  know  you  otherwise  than  by  mere  reputa- 
tion, and  to  testify  to  you  how  much  pleasure  it  affords  me  to  make 
known  to  you  and  all  persons  my  good-will  toward  yourself.  In  the 
assurance  of  which  I  pray  you  to  give  faith  to  what  the  Sieur  de 
Pira  will  say  to  you  in  my  name. 

"Adieu,  Mons.  de  Roaldes.  I  pray  you  may  continue  in  His 
holy  keeping. 

"From  Pau,  20th,  October,  1584. 

"Your  well  assured  friend, 

"Henri." 

The  tablet  of  the  handsome  tomb  in  which  Arthur 
de  Roaldes'  mortal  remains  were  buried  holds  the 
list  of  the  many  decorations  and  medals  awarded  him 
by  foreign  governments  for  his  good  work  among 
their  subjects;  but  in  truth  he  needs  no  such  decora- 
tions or  medals,  or  even  the  letter  of  the  King  of 
France.  His  monument  and  enduring  record  is  his 
hospital  and  the  memory  of  him  that  is  preserved  in 
New  Orleans. 

*  Facsimile  of  Henry  IV's  letter  is  in  the  historical  collection  at  the 
Cabildo. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 
PITOT 

TACQUES  PITOT  DE  BEAUJARDIERE  and 
^  Joseph  Roffignac,  two  young  gentlemen  of  the 
nobihty,  fled  from  France  during  the  Reign  of  Terror 
and  came  to  Louisiana,  settling  in  New  Orleans  where, 
strange  to  say,  both  in  time  filled  the  high  and 
honorable  office  of  Mayor. 

They  related  on  their  arrival  in  the  city  the  story 
of  their  last  experience  in  their  own  country.  Passing 
through  Paris,  they  heard  in  the  streets  a  rumble 
as  of  a  great  crowd  approaching,  with  all  the  out- 
cries and  vociferations  of  a  riotous  mob.  They 
stopped  to  see  the  cause  of  it.  A  surging,  furious 
mass  of  people  swept  by  them,  filling  the  street, 
carr3dng  on  a  tall  pike  the  beautiful  head  of  the 
Princesse  de  Lamballe,  the  hair  dressed  in  court 
coiffure.  Transfixed  with  horror,  Pitot  exclaimed 
aloud  involuntarily  and  began  to  give  expression  to 
his  outraged  feelings,  when  he  was  touched  on  the 
elbow  and  a  low  voice  whispered  in  his  ear:  "Mar- 
chez,  marchez,  monsieur;  vous  vous  compromettez." 
And  a  plain  laborer,  ^'un  homme  en  blouse,"  glided 
quickly  from  his  side.  This  was  more  than  enough ; 
the  two  young  men  sped  from  the  death  behind 
them  and  disembarked  from  their  native  land  the 
next  day. 

On  arrival  in  the  new  world,  they  dropped  their 

429 


430  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

titles  in  order  to  conform  to  the  republican  spirit. 
Pitot  was  from  Rouen  and  a  thorough  Norman  in 
enterprise  and  energy.  After  witnessing  the  taking 
over  of  the  colony  by  France  from  Spain  and  its 
hurried  cession  to  the  United  States,  he  grasped  the 
golden  opportunities  for  business  about  him  under 
the  American  regime,  and  was  soon  ranked  with 
the  prominent  and  wealthy  merchants  of  the  place. 
It  is  said  that  he  established  the  first  cotton  press 
known  in  the  city  (on  the  corner  of  Toulouse  and 
Burgundy  Streets). 

Etienne  de  Bore,  as  has  been  related,  acceding  to 
de  Laussat's  appeal  to  his  patriotism,  had  filled  the 
office  of  Mayor  of  New  Orleans  during  the  short 
episode  of  the  second  French  Administration,  but 
he  refused  to  continue  in  office  under  the  government 
of  the  United  States,  to  which  he  was  in  principle 
opposed.  The  city  with  the  territory  was  then 
under  the  rule  of  a  Legislative  Council  appointed  by 
the  President.  Laussat  had  abohshed  the  Cabildo 
and  established  for  the  government  of  the  city  a 
Municipal  Council,  composed  of  a  Mayor  and  twelve 
members.  The  council  continued  in  office  after  the 
transfer  of  the  colony  to  the  United  States,  and  it 
was  re-established  by  Claiborne,  who  presided  at  its 
meetings,  at  which  were  present  all  of  the  original 
members  with  the  exception  of  three  who,  with  de 
Bor6,  for  political  reasons  had  resigned.  Pitot  was 
among  the  nmnber  chosen  to  replace  these.  On 
June  2nd,  1800,  he  was  elected  Mayor  by  the  Council, 
with  the  approval  of  Claiborne,  who  afterwards 
was  sworn  into  the  office  of  Governor  by  Pitot. 

New  Orleans  in  her  career  has  been  honored  or 


Toulouse  Street,  Near  ''Old  Levee"  Street 


PITOT  433 

dishonored  by  many  kinds  of  Mayors.  But  the 
example  of  Pitot  could  produce  only  the  Mayor  that 
honored  the  city.  Claiborne  in  his  voluminous 
correspondence  never  lets  his  pen  run  over  his  name 
without  a  commendation  of  him. 

The  duties  of  the  office  of  Mayor  at  that  period 
were  not  Hght  or  easy.  The  citizens  were  in  an  ugly 
mood  over  the  scamping,  as  they  saw  it,  by  the 
United  States  of  the  treaty  with  Napoleon,  and 
they  were  in  a  state  of  constant  ferment  and  indigna- 
tion against  the  injustice  put  upon  them  by  Congress. 
Public  meetings  were  held,  with  violent  orators 
denouncing  the  United  States  and  clamoring  for  the 
rights  of  Louisiana.  Pitot  himself  presided  at  one 
of  these  meetings  and  was  on  the  committee  that 
drew  up  the  protest  that  was  presented  by  a  delega- 
tion to  Congress.  He  presented  the  paper  himself 
to  Claiborne.  Claiborne,  always  timid  before  the 
irrepressible  nature  of  the  Creoles,  seemed  never 
quite  sure  that  they  did  not  meditate  some  such 
coup  d'etat  as  they  engineered  against  Spain;  but  in 
a  letter  to  the  Secretary  of  State,  Madison,  he  writes:* 

"I  place  much  confidence  in  the  good  intentions  and  prudent 
conduct  of  Mr.  Pitot,  the  Mayor  of  the  city,  whose  influence  is 
considerable,  and  who  assures  me  that  the  peace  of  the  city  shall  not 
be  disturbed." 

He  added: 

"The  Louisianians  are  a  zealous  people  and  their  lively  support 
of  measures,  nay,  their  enthusiasm,  may  be  easily  excited;  but  I 
find  they  readily  listen  to  good  advice  and  are  generally  pacific  and 
well  disposed  again." 

*  "Official  Letter  Books  of  W.  C.  C.  Claiborne."  Vol.  II,  pp. 
137-9. 


434  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

It  was  to  the  Mayor  that  the  good  Protestant 
Governor  referred  the  complaint  of  the  Lady  Abbess 
of  the  UrsuHne  convent  that  a  play  was  being  pro- 
duced at  the  theatre  that  cast  ridicule  on  her  con- 
vent.    The  play  was  withdrawn. 

It  is  significant  of  the  esteem  in  which  Pitot  was 
held  in  that  he  was  appointed  Vice-Chancellor  of 
the  University  of  Orleans,  as  the  parent  of  the  old 
College  d'Orleans  was  grandiloquently  called  at  its 
foundation— one  of  the  first  effects  of  the  enhghten- 
ment  of  the  American  Domination. 

Pitot  resigned  the  office  of  Mayor  in  the  summer  of 
1805  and  was  appointed  by  Claiborne  Judge  of  the 
Probate  Court  of  the  Parish  of  Orleans,  whose 
jurisdiction  extended  from  the  Balize  to  Baton 
Rouge. 

Armand  Pitot,  his  son,  was  a  distinguished  lawyer 
of  the  Louisiana  Bar,  and  became  clerk  of  the 
Supreme  Court.  He  married  a  daughter  of  Monte- 
gut  ^^fils/^  sister  of  the  wife  of  Felix  Grima.  Mr. 
Gustave  Pitot,  the  third  generation  of  the  name  in 
New  Orleans,  was  for  many  years  a  manager  of  the 
Citizens  Bank,  one  of  the  oldest  financial  institutions 
in  the  city.  The  family  group  of  the  Montegut 
family,  by  Amans,  in  the  Historical  Society  Museum, 
was  an  heirloom  of  the  Pitot  family.  They  have 
confided  it  to  the  keeping  of  the  Louisiana  Historical 
Society. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 
ROFFIGNAC 

COUNT  LOUIS  PHILIPPE  JOSEPH  DE  ROF- 
FIGNAC was  a  native  of  Perigord.  He  was  of 
noble  birth  and  had  been  a  page  to  the  Dowager 
Duchesse  d'Orleans,  the  mother  of  Louis  PhiHppe. 
At  seventeen  he  received  his  commission  from  Louis 
XVI  as  a  Lieutenant  of  Artillery,  and  served  in  Spain 
under  his  father  who  held  an  important  command 
in  the  French  Army.  At  twenty-four  he  was  pro- 
moted on  the  field  of  action,  for  gallantry,  to  a 
captaincy  in  the  Queen's  Regiment  of  Dragoons. 

He  came  to  New  Orleans,  as  has  been  related,  with 
Jacques  Pitot,  having  been  compelled  to  fly  from 
France  to  escape  the  guillotine.  Avaihng  himself 
of  an  article  in  the  Treaty  of  Cession  which  allowed 
French  subjects  equal  privileges,  including  naturali- 
zation, with  those  conferred  upon  actual  residents 
of  Louisiana,  he  became  automatically  upon  his 
arrival  in  Louisiana  an  American  citizen.  His 
appreciation  of  this  high  honor,  as  he  considered  it, 
he  proved  during  his  long  Hfe.  -- 

He  does  not  seem,  like  so  many  of  the  new  citi- 
zens at  that  time,  to  have  opened  his  eyes  to  the 
money-making  opportunities  spread  before  him, 
but  he  undertook  at  once  the  serious  fulfillment  of 
civic  duties.  He  entered  the  Legislature  and  served 
as    State    Senator    for    twelve    years.      Gallantly 

435 


436  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

responding  to  the  call  of  patriotism  when  New 
Orleans  was  threatened  by  the  British,  he  became  a 
soldier  again  and  he  was  made  a  Colonel  in  the 
Louisiana  Legion. 

Roffignac  was  elected  a  director  in  the  State  Bank 
of  Louisiana  when  the  choice  signified  acknowledg- 
ment of  mental  ability  and  moral  qualities  as  well; 
and  finally  he  was  elected  Mayor  of  the  city  and  was 
maintained  in  the  office  eight  years. 

It  was  a  proud  day  for  the  city  when  he  assumed 
office.  He  was,  par  excellence,  the  Mayor  for  New 
Orleans :  an  aristocrat,  a  gentleman,  a  man  of  letters 
and  a  clear-headed  executive  of  ability. 

Roffignac  restored  the  finances  of  the  city,  strictly 
enforced  the  cleaning  and  policing  of  the  streets, 
improved  the  public  squares,  and  encouraged  the 
estabhshment  of  institutions  of  education  and 
charity.  It  was  during  his  administration  that  in 
the  Place  d'Armes,  along  Esplanade,  Rampart  and 
Canal  Streets,  the  sycamores  and  elms  were  planted, 
which  gave  to  the  city  its  foreign  aspect  for  so  long 
a  period.  The  dear  old  trees,  so  kindly  in  the  sum- 
mer with  their  good  shade,  and  so  beautiful  in  the 
spring  with  their  diaphanous  white  flowers,  under 
which  the  old  inhabitants  used  to  promenade  on 
Sunday  afternoons,  were  destroyed  eventually  in 
one  of  the  unsentimental  and  ignorant  expressions  of 
what  was  termed  (as  such  attempts  are  always 
termed)  civic  progress  and  improvement. 

The  first  contract  to  pave  the  mud  streets  with 
cobblestones  covered  with  sand  and  gravel  was  made 
under  Roffignac,  and  a  regular  system  of  fight- 
ing the  city  was  introduced  by  means  of  large  lamps 
with  reflectors,  hung  from  ropes  fastened  to  high 


ROFFIGNAC  437 

posts  at  the  corners  of  the  streets — an  innovation 
hailed  with  delight  by  the  citizens,  who  hitherto  had 
been  forced  to  furnish  their  own  illumination  by 
carrying  lanterns  on  dark  nights. 

The  city  needed  then  just  such  an  administrator. 
It  was  enduring  then  the  roughest  period  of  its 
existence.  A  never-ceasing  influx  of  strangers 
poured  through  its  streets — mostly  traders  from  the 
wild  West  who  came  down  the  river  in  barges  and 
flatboats,  laden  with  flour  and  grain  and  immense 
quantities  of  cured  beef  to  sell.  They  filled  the  streets 
at  night  with  the  noise  of  their  drunken  brawls. 
In  their  wake  followed  a  horde  of  gamblers  and 
disreputable  men.  Licensed  gambling  was  per- 
mitted; the  gambling  dens  were  kept  open  all 
night.  The  night  poUce  were  inefficient  and  too 
few  in  number  for  the  size  of  the  territory  they  had 
to  guard.  Assaults,  robberies,  crimes  of  all  kinds 
were  committed  under  the  very  eaves  of  the  Cabildo ; 
incendiary  fires  were  of  daily  occurrence. 

But  all  menaces  to  peace  and  order  Roffignac  met 
with  the  energy  and  courage  of  a  soldier;  and  he 
imposed  upon  the  lawless  barbarians  a  regard  for  the 
dignity  of  the  city.  It  was,  however,  toward  the 
close  of  his  administration  that  occurred  a  great 
civic  misfortune — the  terrible  fire  that  consumed  the 
State  House.  This  was  only  a  plain  building  on 
the  lower  corner  of  Toulouse  and  the  Levee,  with  a 
broad  gallery  in  front  overlooking  the  river.  A 
Httle  garden  at  the  side  held  a  parterre  of  flowers 
and  bouquets  of  tropical  shrubbery.  To  the  people, 
however,  it  was  the  stately  ^' Hotel  du  Gouverne- 
ment"  of  the  French  and  Spanish  administration, 
and  consecrated  as  the  stage  of  all  the  great  political 


438  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

events  of  the  colony's  history.  In  it  every  Act 
of  Cession  of  the  colony  had  been  registered,  every 
^ ^ordinance,"  or  ''Bando  de  Gobierno/'  promul- 
gated. Under  its  roof  was  signed  the  warrant 
that  condemned  Lafreniere  and  his  followers  to  their 
glorious  death.  Within  its  walls  Governor  Claiborne 
and  General  Wilkinson  held  their  conference  to 
thwart  the  designs  of  Aaron  Burr;  and  there  General 
Jackson  had  followed  up  his  victory  over  the  Enghsh 
by  conceiving  his  high-handed  design  of  dispersing 
the  State  Legislature  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet  to 
get  rid  of  the  ''traitors/'  as  he  considered  them. 

It  had  been  built  in  1761,  under  the  French  regime, 
and  at  the  time  of  the  disaster  was  the  official  resi- 
dence of  Governor  Pierre  Derbigny.  In  its  upper 
chambers  were  held  the  Legislative  Assemblies  (the 
legislators  and  senators  mounting  to  them  by  a 
rickety  stairway  that  was  always  threatening  to 
collapse).  The  State  offices  occupied  the  ground 
floor.  Adjoining  them  was  the  public  library,  pos- 
sessing, in  truth,  but  a  scant  collection  of  books, 
but  rich  in  irare  and  valuable  manuscripts  and  histor- 
ical records  (to-day  they  would  be  considered  beyond 
price).  All  were  consumed,  including  an  entire 
edition  of  the  Code  of  Practice,  and  all  but  a  hundred 
volumes  of  the  new  Civil  Code. 

On  the  day  after  the  fire,  the  Legislature,  which 
had  been  is  session,  assembled  on  the  invitation  of 
Mayor  Roffignac  in  his  public  parlor  to  consult  upon 
the  selection  of  another  building  in  which  to  con- 
tinue their  deliberations.  It  was  decided  to  take 
the  Orleans  Ballroom,  offered  by  that  good  citizen, 
its  proprietor,  John  Davis. 

Not  only  did  Roffignac  make  the  city  proud  of  his 


'  -^;£.^N«»Q<w^7d. 


Porte-Cochere  on  Chartres  Street. 


ROFFIGNAC  441 

administrative  ability;  he  flattered  it  by  his 
undoubted  position  as  a  man  of  letters.  He  main- 
tained frequent  communication  with  the  leading 
statesmen  of  France  and  an  unbroken  correspondence 
with  Lafayette,  who  in  1825,  when  he  made  his  ever- 
famous  and  glorious  visit  to  the  city,  was  received 
by  Roffignac  under  a  great  arch  in  the  Place  d'Armes 
with  a  speech  that  outshone  Lafayette's  reply. 

He  lived  on  Chartres  Street  between  Dumaine 
and  St.  PhilUppe,  in  close  proximity  to  the  Hotel  de 
Ville  and  the  Cabildo.  He  had  married  very  hap- 
pily a  daughter  of  the  good  old  family  of  Montegut. 

In  1828  he  wrote  his  farewell  address  to  the 
President  and  members  of  the  City  Council.  It  was 
a  noble  letter,  which  to-day,  nearly  a  century  later, 
moves  the  heart  with  its  genuine  and  lofty  sincerity, 
and  true  vision  of  the  proper  government  of  a  city. 
His  retirement  from  office  w^as  keenly  regretted; 
he  had  devoted  eight  years  of  his  Kfe  to  the  service 
of  the  city,  and  thirty  to  that  of  the  State.    " 

Roffignac  retired  to  France,  where  he  had  inherited 
from  an  aunt  a  considerable  fortune;  but  he  never 
could  be  induced  to  resume  his  title.  To  the  solicita- 
tions of  his  wife  and  children  he  would  reply  inva- 
riably that  he  w^ould  remain  plain  Mr.  Roffignac  in 
France  as  he  had  been  in  America.  He  was  cor- 
dially welcomed  in  Paris,  and  invited  to  luncheon  at 
the  Tuileries  by  Louis  Philippe,  who  remembered 
he  was  Madame  de  Roffignac's  godfather,  and  that 
Dr.  Montegut  had  entertained  him  hospitably  in 
the  old  days  of  his  exile  in  New  Orleans. 

Roffignac's  daughter  married  the  secretary  of  the 
King's  sister  and  his  two  sons  married  into  families 
of  distinction.     His  wife,  ''an  excellent  and  chari- 


442  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

table  woman/ ^  says  Gayarre,  lived  with  her  daughter 
in  Paris. 

He  retired  to  his  chateau,  near  Prigueux.  There 
Gayarre  visited  him,  when  he  was  over  eighty  years 
old,  describing  him  thus: 

"He  pressed  me  tenderly  in  his  arms,  but  alas  wept  bitterly. 
In  the  course  of  conversation  I  saw  that  he  was  an  incurable  sufferer 
and  that  life  had  become  to  him  an  insufferable  burden.  He 
deplored  that  he  had  ever  left  Louisiana,  which  had  become  his  real 
home,  while  his  native  country  had  ceased  in  his  eyes  to  retain  that 
character  after  so  long  an  absence  from  it.  Now  it  was  too  late! 
too  late  to  go  back!  His  face  was  woebegone  when  we  parted;  he 
pressed  my  hand  with  energy  and  said  in  a  voice  that  sounded  like 
a  sob:  'My  dear  friend,  if  you  wish  to  meet  a  friendly  eye  on  your 
deathbed — buy  a  dog.'  He  died  shortly  afterward,  in  his  chair, 
from  the  accidental  discharge  of  his  pistol  that  he  was  handling." 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 
ST.  GEME 

THE  memory  of  St.  Geme  is  preserved  in  two 
historical    records.     Gayarre,    in    a   historical 
sketch  of  Pierre  and  Jean  Lafitte,  writes: 

"Shortly  after  the  war  (1812),  there  was  between  two  citizens  of 
Louisiana  an  affair  of  honor  which  produced  considerable  excitement. 
Pierre  Lafitte  was  the  second  one  of  them,  and  St.  Geme  of  the  other. 
St.  Geme  had  no  superior  in  New  Orleans  as  to  social  position.  He 
had  distinguished  himself  under  General  Jackson  as  the  captain 
of  one  of  our  uniformed  companies,  and  was  considered  by  the  whole 
population  as  a  sort  of  Bayard.  Would  St.  G6me  have  consented 
to  meet  Lafitte  in  the  capacity  I  have  mentioned,  if  the  latter  had 
really  been  looked  upon  as  a  pirate?" 

The  other  record  leads  us  to  the  years  before  the 
Battle  of  New  Orleans,  when  General  Victor 
Moreau,  condemned  to  exile  by  Napoleon,  who  was 
accused  of  being  jealous  of  his  brilHant  rival,  came 
to  the  United  States,  and  in  the  course  of  his  travels 
paid  a  visit  to  New  Orleans,  where  he  met  with  a 
reception  of  the  best  New  Orleans  kind. 

The  Governor,  the  military,  the  civil  authorities, 
as  well  as  the  people  themselves,  turned  out  en 
masse  in  his  honor,  although  the  American  authori- 
ties regarded  him  with  a  suspicious  eye.  He  mingled 
freely  with  the  French  people,  and  was  most  cordial 
in  greeting  the  French  veterans  in  the  city,  many  of 
whom  had  seen  service  in  Egypt  and  on  the  Rhine. 
He  played  piquet  with  Pitot,  discussed  law  with 

443 


444  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

Derbigny,  sipped  wine  with  Claiborne,  and  played 
billiards  with  Marigny;  and  in  every  way  made  him- 
self agreeable  to  the  enthusiastic  citizens.  He  was 
fond  of  horseback  exercise  and  would  make  short 
excursions  in  the  surrounding  country.  It  was  dur- 
ing one  of  these  jaunts  that,  in  the  company  of 
Major  St.  Geme,  a  man  who  had  seen  service  in 
Jamaica,  he  was  struck  by  the  peculiar  fitness  of  a 
piece  of  ground  which  formed  a  natural  bulwark 
against  an  invading  land  force  from  below  the  river. 
Sitting  erect  upon  his  horse  he  critically  examined 
the  spot  and  descanted  with  warmth  on  the  many 
advantages  the  locahty  offered  if  fortified  as  an 
intrenched  camp. 

His  companion  never  forgot  the  incident  and 
related  it  to  Livingston  who,  in  turn,  related  it  to 
General  Jackson  on  the  memorable  night  of  Decem- 
ber 24th,  1814,  when  the  first  clash  took  place 
between  the  British  and  American  forces.  That  spot 
was  Rodriguez  Canal,  which  Jackson  selected  and 
fortified — and  immortalized  by  his  heroic  defense. 
'This,'^  adds  the  author,  '^is  a  historical  fact.'^* 

The  family  of  Henri,  Baron  de  St.  Geme,  Marquis 
d'Ustou  Montaubon,  Chevalier  of  St.  Louis,  ascends 
to  the  year  1590.  When  St.  Geme  came  to  New 
Orleans  is  not  recorded.  It  is  known,  however, 
that  in  the  city  he  married  the  widow  of  Jean  Fran- 
gois  Dreux,  who  was  a  Demoiselle  Delmas,  and  that 
they  went  to  France  where  they  lived  in  the  Chateau 
de  Barbazan.  They  had  but  one  son,  Henri.  The 
connection  with  New  Orleans  was  resumed  in  later 
years  when  this  son  married  Eugenie  de  Puech,  the 
daughter  of  Louis  de  Puech  and  Althee  d'Aquin,  who 

*  Henry  Castillanos,  "New  Orleans  As  It  Was." 


ST.  G^ME  445 

was  born  in  New  Orleans  and  baptized  in  the  old 
St.  Louis  Cathedral.  The  marriage  took  place  in 
Tarbes,  France. 

The  Puechs  belonged  to  an  old  Huguenot  family 
who,  after  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  emigrated  to  Boston 
and  from  there  went  to  St.  Domingo,  where  they 
acquired  vast  property.  They  were  driven  out  by 
the  insurrection  of  the  negroes  and  took  refuge  in 
Philadelphia. 

The  three  children  of  Louis  de  Puech  were  regis- 
tered at  the  French  consulate  in  Philadelphia  as 
French  subjects,  and  were  sent  to  France  for  their 
education.  Ernest  was  admitted  to  the  school  of 
St.  Cyr,  and  was  there  when  the  Revolution  of  1848 
overthrew  the  republican  government  for  that  of 
Louis  Philippe.  He  returned  to  New  Orleans  and 
thenceforth  was  counted  among  the  foremost  citizens 
of  the  place.  He  was  the  organizer  and  the  first 
president  of  the  Cotton  Exchange.  He  enUsted  in 
the  Civil  War  and  became  a  major  of  the  Garde 
d 'Orleans,  and  took  part  in  several  engagements. 
His  age  alone  prevented  his  flying  to  France  and 
offering  himself  in  the  last  war.  At  his  funeral, 
military  honors  were  accorded  him  by  a  file  of  his 
old  comrades  of  the  Confederate  Guards. 

The  Vicomte  Henri  de  St.  Geme  died  in  190L 
His  widow  survived  him  many  years.  They  had  no 
children  and  she  adopted  Lucile,  the  granddaughter 
of  her  brother,  Ernest  de  Puech  of  New  Orleans, 
and  who  at  present  is  Madame  Albin  La  Fonta. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 
ALLAIN 

FRANCOIS  ALLAIN,  a  native  of  Brittany,  was 
the  first  of  his  family  to  come  to  America.  He 
had  been  an  officer  in  the  French  Army  and  had 
fought  in  1745  at  the  Battle  of  Fontenoy.  Why  he 
left  his  country  for  Louisiana  is  not  known  nor  why 
he  selected  a  home  in  Baton  Rouge,  ^'le  poste  des 
Attakapas,"  as  it  was  called. 

He  brought  with  him  two  daughters  and  two  sons, 
one  of  whom,  Augustin,  Captain  of  Grenadiers, 
founded  the  branch  of  the  family  known  in  New 
Orleans.  Two  sons  were  Val^rien  and  Soathene. 
Valerien,  the  better  known  of  the  two,  married 
Celeste  Duralde,  the  daughter  of  Martin  Duralde, 
a  Spanish  officer  stationed  at  the  Poste  de  Attakapas. 
Of  the  three  Duralde  sisters,  one  married  John  Clay, 
the  brother  of  Henry  Clay;  another,  Soniat  du 
Fossat;  and  the  third  (Clarisse),  C.  C.  Claiborne, 
Governor  of  Louisiana. 

The  mother  of  the  Duraldes  was  a  Perrault.  She 
was  from  Canada  and  a  descendant  of  Charles 
Perrault,  the  immortal  author  of  the  Fairy  Tales. 

Valerien  and  Celeste  Duralde  had  one  son,  Valer- 
ien, born  and  baptized  in  1799,  and  three  daughters, 
who  became  Mesdames  Ursin  Soniat,  Valerien 
Dubroca,  and  George  Eustis.  Mrs.  Eustis  was  the 
mother  of  Allain  Eustis,  who  married  Anais  de  Saint 

446 


ALLAIN  447 

Manat.  Her  sons  were  James  Eustis,  late  Ambas- 
sador to  France;  and  George  Eustis,  in  his  day  the 
''Beau  Brunmiell"  of  New  Orleans,  who  married 
Louise  Corcoran,  daughter  of  the  Washington  philan- 
thropist. The  daughters  of  this  last  couple  were 
Mathilde,  who  married  an  Englishman  and  liv^ed 
abroad;  and  Celestine,  still  living,  who  is  to-day  cited 
as  the  ''fine  fleur"  of  what  ante-bellum  New  Orleans 
could  produce  in  the  way  of  a  grande  dame.  To  the 
grace  of  the  Creole  she  adds  the  intellect  of  a  woman 
of  letters,  and  she  is  the  author  of  several  books 
connected  with  the  life  of  her  family  in  New  Orleans, 
the  profits  of  whose  sale  she  has  given  in  charity. 

Val^rien,  the  son,  was  sent  to  France  to  complete 
his  education.  He  spent  some  ten  years  abroad, 
most  of  the  time  in  Paris,  where  he  frequented  the 
society  of  men  of  letters  and  indulged  his  cult  for 
the  stage.  It  is  not  surprising  that,  on  his  return  to 
Louisiana,  he  found  life  on  his  father's  plantation 
insupportably  dull  and  resolved  to  Hve  in  the  city, 
where  he  married  Armantine  Pitot,  the  daughter  of 
Jacques  Pitot  de  Beaujardiere,  the  first  American 
Mayor  of  New  Orleans. 

It  was  the  day  in  Paris  when  gastronomy  was  an 
intellectual  pleasure,  and  a  good  cooking  a  fine  art. 
Gaj^arre  used  to  say  that  the  nearest  approach  to 
Parisian  dinners  that  he  had  seen  out  of  Paris  were 
given  by  Valerien  Allain.  Fortunately  he  lived  at  a 
period  when  the  old  French  market  in  the  city  and 
his  father's  plantation  could  supply  the  viands  neces- 
sary. He  seldom  came  home  without  two  or  three 
chosen  friends  to  dine  with  him ;  and  his  wife,  not  to 
be  taken  unaware,  was  in  the  habit  of  stationing  her 
butler  in  an  advanced  post  of  observation  to  give 


448  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

warning  how  many  guests  were  with  his  master. 
During  the  meal,  Allain,  following  the  brilliant  exam- 
ples he  had  known  in  Paris,  would  rise  from  the  table 
and,  tucking  his  napkin  under  his  vest,  would  pro- 
ceed to  the  kitchen  where,  with  the  most  perfect 
taste  and  skill,  he  would  prepare  such  a  chef  d'oeuvre 
of  cuhnary  art  as  Dumas  himself  (Gayarre  says) 
would  have  been  proud  of.  His  wines  were  all 
imported  direct  from  France.  His  cook  was  the 
celebrated  Gazoue,  an  African  who  had  been  the 
slave  of  Valerien's  father  on  the  plantation.  Gazoue 
was  sent  to  the  best  restaurants  to  finish  him  off  in 
the  art  of  cooking  a  dinner  fit  for  gastronomes,  and 
thus  he  contributed  as  much  and  even  more,  very 
likely,  than  his  master  to  the  success  of  the  Parisian 
dinners. 

Among  the  guests  were  such  men  as  Victor  Burhte, 
a  poet  as  well  as  a  good  talker;  John  P.  Grymes,  a 
colossus  of  wit  and  learning;  Etienne  Mazureau,  the 
finished  orator  who,  it  has  been  said  by  those  who  had 
heard  both,  surpassed  even  Henry  Clay  in  eloquence 
— and  always  Gayarre,  the  host's  intimate  friend  and 
schoolmate. 

When  his  daughters  grew  up  Allain  gave  a  yearly 
grand  ball,  and  every  Thursday  a  small  reception 
for  intimate  friends,  following  the  custom  of  Paris 
again.  The  balls  were  ordered  with  the  same  fastid- 
ious regard  to  the  Paris  standard  as  his  dinners;  a 
full  orchestra  for  the  music,  professional  decorators 
for  the  rooms,  and  a  supper  that  his  guests  thought 
could  have  set  the  standard  for  Paris. 

Valerien  was  ruined  by  the  Civil  War  and  never 
recovered  fortune,  health  or  spirits  afterwards.  In 
the  meantime,  his  uncle,  Sosthene,  lived  on  his  great 


ALLAIN  449 

sugar  plantation  near  Baton  Rou^e  in  the  extrava- 
gantly generous  style  in  force,  at  that  time,  amonp; 
Louisiana  sugar  planters,  until  he  was  ruinecl. 
Ludicrously  enough,  he  is  remembered  principally 
by  the  remarkable  reputation  achieved  by  one  of  his 
slaves;  the  bright,  intelligent,  good-looking  mulatto 
born  on  his  place,  who  was  named  Th6ophile,  but 
called  by  his  master  ''Soulouque,"  after  the  Haytien 
hero.  He  w^as  his  master's  factotum,  accompanying 
him  everywhere. 

After  emancipation,  Soulouque,  as  his  talents 
demanded,  quit  menial  service  and  entered  the  bril- 
liant arena  of  politics,  at  that  time  opened  to  the 
negro.  He  rose  easily  above  his  contemporaries, 
whom  he  dominated  by  his  intellect  and  fine  address. 
He  was  elected  State  Senator;  and,  at  Baton  Rouge, 
further  distinguished  himself  as  a  parliamentarian 
and  a  speaker.  A  gentleman  of  the  Allain  family, 
wuth  whom  Soulouque  remained  always  on  the  best 
of  terms,  went  to  Baton  Rouge  out  of  curiosity  to 
hear  him,  and,  astounded,  asked  him  where  he  had 
learned  to  make  such  fine  speeches.  Soulouque 
answered  magnificently:  ''Did  I  not  stand  behind 
Mr.  Allain's  chair  for  years  listening  to  the  most 
brilhant  men  of  Louisiana  express  themselves  on 
pubUc  affairs?  Hearing  such  talkers  as  Grymes, 
Hunt,  Gayarr^  and  Pitot,  why  should  I  not  be  able 
to  speak  better  than  these  carpetbaggers  up  here?'' 

Celestine  Eustis,  in  a  paper  pubUshed  in  the 
Courier  des  Etats  Unis  (Feb.  4th,  1912),  adds  another 
page  to  these  good  memories,  which  fits  in  with  theiu 
like  a  leaf  to  its  twig.  Her  aunt,  Celestine  Allain  du 
Fossat,  Hved  for  years  in  Paris.  She  was  pretty, 
aristocratic    and    distinguished   looking.      She   was 


450  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

made  to  marry  her  cousin,  Ursin  Soniat,  to  effect  a 
reconciliation  between  her  father  and  his;  "elle  si  peu 
raisonable,  faisait  un  mariage  de  raison,"  exclaimed 
her  niece.  In  consequence  of  a  grave  illness,  her 
physician  sent  her  to  Paris,  at  that  time  the  great 
remedy  for  all  ills.  She  lived  in  an  apartment  in  the 
Quartier  de  la  Madeleine,  in  the  same  house  that  was 
occupied  by  Madame  de  R^camier.  She  seldom  went 
out,  except  from  time  to  time  to  make  an  appearance 
at  a  court  reception,  where  Louis  Philippe  ehowed  her 
the  same  friendship  he  did  to  all  Louisianians.  She 
received  no  society  except  a  small  group  who  were 
wont  to  gather  around  her  on  certain  days,  among 
them  Chateaubriand  and  Lamartine.  With  Cha- 
teaubriand she  formed  a  close  friendship,  and  main- 
tained a  correspondence.  Miss  Eustis  gives  quo- 
tations from  several  of  the  original  notes  in  her 
possession. 

But  Madame  Soniat — and  this  is  the  important 
detail — was  in  such  delicate  health  that  she  required 
constant  and  diligent  care,  which  was  given  her 
by  her  maid,  Anna  Leandre,  a  colored  woman  born 
on  the  plantation,  who  had  been  her  maid  since 
childhood  and  whose  devotion  was  such  that  her 
mistress  used  to  say  that  she  prayed  God  to  take 
her  first  so  that  she  might  be  spared  the  sorrow  of 
surviving  Anna. 

This  affection  prompted  her  to  send  Anna's  name 
to  the  National  Society  of  France  for  the  promotion 
of  virtue,  and  Anna  was  awarded  a  gold  medal. 
Madame  Soniat  wrote  the  account  of  it  to  New 
Orleans: 

"The  ceremony  was  touching  and  handsome.  I  was  thrilled  with 
emotion  at  seeing  my  dear  Anna  taking  the  arm  of  a  young  and 


ALL AIM  451 

handsome  ofTicor  to  go  to  the  i)latform,  where  were  ilie  thirty  judges 
and  presidents,  and  more  than  five  thousand  spectators  to  receive 
the  recompense  she  so  well  deserved.  Each  recipient  received 
applause,  but  Anna  was  more  warmly  applauded  than  any  one  else." 

The  official  record  of  it  is  as  follows: 

"Madame  Anna  L(5andre,  a  woman  of  color,  sevonty-five  years 
old;  born  in  Louisiana,  living  in  Paris.  This  excellent  woman  has 
been  in  the  service  of  Madame  Vve.  Soniat  for  fifty  years  as  maid 
and  nurse,  always  showing  unalterable  attachment.  Her  parents 
and  grandparents  have  served  the  same  family  from  father  to  son 
for  one  hundred  and  fifty  years.  We  recompense  this  rare  example 
of  fidelity  by  the  award  of  a  medal  of  honor.  Paris,  May  22nd, 
1881." 

After  the  death  of  Madame  Soniat,  Anna  retired 
to  a  convent  as  a  boarder,  her  mistress  and  friend 
having  left  her  a  comfortable  pension.  They  he 
side  by  side  in  Pere  la  Chaise. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 
BEAUREGARD 

THE  great  name  of  Beauregard  rises  out  of  and 
floats  above  the  limits  of  city  and  State,  like  the 
genii  of  the  ''Arabian  Nights"  out  of  the  fisherman's 
vase,  never  to  be  recaptured  and  put  back  into  the 
small  receptacle. 

The  earliest  authentic  records  of  the  family  go 
back  to  the  year  1290,  when  Tider,  surnamed  ''the 
Young,"  headed  a  party  of  Welsh  in  revolt  against 
Edward  I,  King  of  England.  Overcome  and  his 
followers  dispersed,  Tider  took  refuge  in  France 
and  was  received  at  the  court  of  Philip  the  Fair;  he 
there  married  Mademoiselle  de  Lafayette,  maid  of 
honor  to  Philip's  sister.  Marguerite,  who  afterwards 
married  King  Edward. 

The  entreaties  of  his  wife  induced  the  King  to  give 
Tider  a  post  in  Saintonge,  the  part  of  the  British 
possessions  in  France.  Eventually  Tider  lost  the 
royal  favor.  He  returned  to  the  service  of  France 
and  died  in  the  neighborhood  of  Tours.  His  son 
returned  to  Saintonge,  and  through  powerful  influ- 
ence he  obtained  a  position  under  the  English  crown. 
To  propitiate  the  King,  to  whom  the  name  of  Tider 
was  odious,  he  changed  it  to  Toutank,  which  gradu- 
ally was  changed  to  Toutant. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  last 
male  descendant  of  the  Toutants  died,  leaving  only  a 

452  J 


BEAUREGARD  453 

daughter,  who  married  Sieur  Paix  dc  Beauregard — 
hence  the  family  name  Toutant-Beauregard,  the  do 
having  been  dropped  and  the  hyphen  substituted. 

Jacques  Toutant-Beauregard  was  the  first  of  his 
name  to  come  from  France  to  Louisiana.  He  was 
sent  under  Louis  XIV  as  commandant  of  a  flotilla 
to  bring  assistance  to  the  colony  and  carry  back 
tunber  for  naval  constructions.  He  succeeded  so 
well  in  his  enterprise  that  on  his  return  to  France  he 
was  given  the  Cross  of  St.  I^ouis. 

He  afterwards  settled  in  Louisiana,  where  he  mar- 
ried Demoiselle  Madeleine  Cartier.  Three  sons  were 
born  to  them;  one  of  them,  Louis  Toutant-Beaure- 
gard, married  IVIademoiselle  Victoire  Ducros,  the 
daughter  of  a  planter  in  the  parish  of  St.  Bernard, 
who  had  filled  several  offices  of  trust  under  the  French 
and  Spanish  governments  of  Louisiana.  They  had 
one  daughter  and  two  sons;  the  younger  son  married 
Llelene  Judith  de  Reggio.  Several  children  were 
born  of  this  union;  the  third  of  them  was  Pierre 
Gustave  Toutant-Beauregard,  the  Confederate 
General. 

The  Reggios  of  Louisiana  descend  from  the  Dukes 
of  Reggio  and  Modena,  of  the  illustrious  house  of 
Este.  Frangois  Marie  Chevaher  de  Reggio  (akin 
to  the  reigning  Duke)  having  distinguished  himself 
under  the  Due  de  Richelieu  in  the  French  Army,  was 
given  a  captaincy  by  Louis  XV,  and  was  shortly 
afterwards  sent  to  Louisiana  with  his  command. 
When  Louisiana  became  a  part  of  the  Spanish 
possessions,  the  Chevaher  de  Reggio  was  appointed 
Alfarez  Real,  or  Royal  Standard  Bearer. 

Of  his  marriage  with  ]\Iiss  Fleuriau  two  sons  were 
born;  the  younger  one  married  Louise  Judith  Olivier 


454  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

de  Vezin,  who  became  the  mother  of  Helene  Judith 
OHvier  de  Vezin,  who  became  the  mother  of  Helene 
Judith  de  Reggio,  the  mother  of  the  future  General 
Beauregard.  He  was  born  on  his  father's  plantation 
in  the  parish  of  St.  Bernard,  near  the  city  of  New 
Orleans,  on  the  28th  of  May,  1818.  When  not  more 
than  eight  years  of  age,  he  was  sent  to  a  small 
primary  school  near  the  city,  where  he  commended 
himself  by  his  studious  habits  and  good  disposition. 
His  dominant  trait  even  at  that  early  age  was  a  pas- 
sion for  all  things  pertaining  to  military  life.  The 
sight  of  a  passing  soldier,  the  beating  of  a  drum, 
would  so  excite  him  that  he  would  forget  everything 
else. 

The  oft-repeated  anecdote  illustrates  this.  At 
the  age  of  ten  he  was  prepared  for  his  first  commu- 
nion. The  appointed  day  for  the  holy  ceremony 
arrived;  with  his  mother,  his  elder  brother,  and  his 
teacher,  he  was  seated  in  one  of  the  front  pews  of  the 
old  St.  Louis  Cathedral,  awaiting  the  solemn  moment 
when  he  was  to  approach  and  kneel  at  the  altar. 
The  moment  came;  his  mother  touched  him  on  the 
shoulder  to  admonish  him  that  it  was  time  to  walk 
up  the  aisle.  He  arose,  deeply  impressed  with  the 
solemnity  of  the  scene,  and  stepped  reverently 
forward  as  he  had  been  directed  to  do.  Halfway 
up  to  the  altar,  the  roll  of  a  drum  resounded  through 
the  Cathedral;  he  stopped,  hesitated  and  looked 
toward  the  family  pew,  where  anxious  eyes  kept  urg- 
ing him  forward.  The  roll  of  the  drum  was  heard 
again,  more  distinct  and  prolonged.  Hesitation 
vanished  at  once.  Turning  his  back  on  the  altar, 
he  dashed  through  the  church  and  disappeared  at  the 
door,  to  the  utter  horror  and  dismay  of  his  loving 
relatives. 


BEAUREGARD  4r)5 

At  the  age  of  eleven,  he  was  taken  to  New  York 
where  he  remained  four  years  under  the  tuition  of 
two  retired  officers  of  the  French  Army  who  had  seen 
service  under  Napoleon.  At  sixteen,  he  entered 
West  Point;  his  parents,  who  had  persistently 
opposed  his  wish  to  obtain  an  appointment  there, 
finally  yielding,  overcome  by  his  entreaties.  He 
went  through  his  four  years'  course  with  no  less 
distinction  than  success;  and  was  graduated  second 
in  a  class  of  forty-five.  In  the  same  year  he  was 
appointed  Second  Lieutenant  in  the  United  States 
Engineers. 

His  fife  now  goes  into  the  military  history  of  the 
United  States.  His  services  in  the  Mexican  War 
belong  to  the  briUiant  record  of  the  army.  From 
1853  to  1861  he  remained  in  charge  of  what  was  then 
called  the  Mississippi  and  Lake  Defense  of  Louisiana. 
During  that  time  he  also  superintended  the  building 
of  the  Custom  House  at  New  Orleans. 

In  1860,  he  was  appointed  Superintendent  of  the 
Mihtary  Academy  of  West  Point,  but  filled  the 
position  only  a  few  months.  Resigning  in  1861  from 
the  service  of  the  United  States  he  returned  to  New 
Orleans  and  volunteered  as  a  private  in  the  old 
Creole  Corps,  the  battaUon  of  the  Orleans  Guard, 
composed  of  the  elite  of  the  Creole  population. 
When  the  Louisiana  State  forces  were  organized,  he 
was  appointed  Brigadier-General. 

He  had  married  shortly  after  his  graduation 
Laure  Marie  Villere,  the  granddaughter  of  the 
patriot  who  had  been  shot  by  the  Spaniards,  and 
the  daughter  of  Jacques  Villere,  the  first  Creole 
Governor  of  Louisiana.  Three  children  were  born 
to  him:  two  sons,  Henri  and  Ren6,  and  a  daughter, 
Laure.     The  sons,  while  mere  boys,  became  officers 


456  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

on  his  staff  during  the  Civil  War.  Henri  passed 
from  New  Orleans  eventually.  Rene  became  a  judge 
in  the  parish  of  St.  Bernard,  and  for  many  years 
filled  the  office  with  distinguished  ability.  Laure 
married  Mr.  Charles  B.  Larendon,  of  Atlanta.  She 
died  before  her  father,  leaving  one  daughter,  Laure, 
who  resides  in  Atlanta.  Judge  Rene,  Beauregard^s 
son,  is  the  sole  male  survivor  of  the  family;  he  bears 
his  grandfather's  name. 

After  the  death  of  his  first  wife.  General  Beaure- 
gard married  Caroline  des  Londes,  daughter  of  one 
of  the  prominent  planters  of  the  State  (her  sister 
had  married  John  SHdell,  the  Confederate  Commis- 
sioner to  France).  His  second  wife  died  during  the 
war. 

At  the  invitation  of  the  Louisiana  Historical 
Society,  Ren6  T.  Beauregard  wrote  a  short  sketch  of 
his  father  in  his  social  and  domestic  Hfe — the  simple, 
tender  and  frank  memory  of  a  son. 

"My  first  recollection  of  my  father,"  he  says,  "is  when  he  left 
Louisiana  for  the  Mexican  War.  I  remember  his  disappearing 
figure  and  rapid  footsteps  down  the  stairs  of  our  old  St.  Louis  Street 
home,  and  my  mother's  tears  as  she  stood  with  her  two  children  at 
the  head  of  the  staircase." 

When  General  Beauregard  returned  to  New 
Orleans,  after  the  surrender  of  the  Confederacy,  he 
had  been  a  widower  for  more  than  a  year.  Moreover, 
he  found  society  disorganized,  families  extinct,  and 
business  paralyzed.  It  is  a  painful  memory  that  is 
tacitly  now  ignored.  He  became  a  mendicant  for 
work  at  doors  that  were  shut  in  his  face  (even  as 
Charles  Gayarre  was  then  making  the  experience). 

"Condemned  to  forced  inaction,"  proceeds  the  son's  relation, 
"and  to  wait  the  unknown  results  the  victor  had  prepared  for  the 


Rampart  and  St.  Peter  Streets. 


BEAUREGARD  459 

vanquished,"  he  began,  "while  the  facts  wore  still  fresh  in  liis  mind 
to  write  the  historicnl  outlines  of  the  j^roat  drama  in  which  hn  had 
played  a  leading  ])art,  primarily,  to  safeguard  his  reputation  from 
the  imputation  of  errors  that  he  had  not  committed,  the  recollection 
of  which  rankled  in  his  mind  still  suffering  and  sore  from  the  after- 
war  conditions.  After  much  labor  and  time  consumed  in  collecting 
and  verifying  the  documentary  evidence  of  what  took  place.    .    .    ." 

(evidence  which  has  cleared  his  name  and  reputation 
beyond  even  the  suspicion  of  miUtary  errors)  two 
compendious  volumes  were  published:  'The  Military 
Operations  of  General  Beauregard,"  by  Alfred 
Roman,  a  friend  to  whom  he  modestly  conamitted  the 
writing  of  the  book. 

As  a  guide  to  the  understanding  of  the  confused 
condition  of  military  affairs  in  the  South  during  the 
first  years  of  the  Confederacy  it  has  attained  a  first 
rank  in  such  publications;  but  at  the  time  his  son 
frankly  confesses  the  volumes  did  not  please  or 
satisfy  all.  Gayarre,  who  made  a  study  of  the 
work  and  reviewed  it  in  a  masterly  way,  gives  his 
opinion  that  ''no  future  history  of  the  war  can  be 
written  Tvdthout  the  study  of  it." 

The  General  descended  to  the  rank  of  a  private 
citizen,  practising  ''the  dignified  submission  to 
defeat"  that  he  had  counselled  others.  He  accepted 
with  soldierly  acquiescence  the  penalties  he  had 
incurred,  and  drank  his  cup  of  humihation  with  even 
courtly  grace. 

During  the  long  life  that  followed,  he  mingled  in 
simple  cordiaUty  with  his  fellow  citizens,  enjoying 
social  intercourse  and  the  pleasures  that  chance 
threw  in  his  way,  banishing  from  his  face  any  trace 
of  the  bitterness  that  must  have  welled  from  his 
heart.  He  became  a  familiar  figure  on  the  streets 
and  in  the  theatres  and  popular  meetings.    Parents 


460  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

used  to  point  him  out  to  their  children,  who  will 
transmit  to  their  children  the  tradition  of  the  sol- 
dierly figure  of  the  old  gentleman  with  white  hair 
and  mustache,  carrying  his  head  like  a  marshal  of 
France — always  simply  dressed,  always  gracious  of 
manner,  smiling  kindly  in  response  to  even  the  shy 
salute  of  a  newsboy.  For  eleven  years  he  conferred 
upon  the  Ath^nee  Louisianais  the  honor  of  serving 
as  its  president ;  and  he  punctiliously  and  generously 
fulfilled  all  the  duties  required  by  the  position.  His 
official  addresses,  delivered  in  the  perfect  French  of 
an  academician,  remain  models  of  amiable  and 
enlightened  scholarship,  restricted  by  the  terse 
eloquence  of  the  soldier. 

He  died  in  1893,  and  was  accorded  that  belated 
compliment  of  a  grand  funeral.  His  body  lay  in 
state  at  the  City  Hall,  while  great  throngs  paid 
obeisance  to  it.  He  was  buried  in  a  simple  tomb  in 
the  vault  of  the  Army  of  Tennessee,  a  soldier  among 
soldiers.  His  son,  Ren6,  fies  near  him  in  the  same 
vault,  his  daughter  Laure  not  far  away. 

A  monument  has  been  raised  to  him  at  the  entrance 
of  the  City  Park,  where  ends  the  old  road  which  was 
used  by  the  Indians  as  a  portage,  and  which  Bienville 
traversed  on  his  way  to  found  the  city — the  road 
that  was  trod  by  all  of  Bienville's  followers,  the  sons 
of  France  and  Canada,  the  makers  of  the  city.  Old 
forest  oaks  are  still  standing  that  were  alive  then. 
The  gray  stone  figure,  mounted  on  a  battle  charger, 
looks  steadily  ahead,  bidding  as  once  in  a  battle 
charge,  ''Not  go  hut  follow,''  Not  far  away,  within 
bugle  sound,  is  the  home  for  old  Confederate  soldiers 
a  vanishing  wisp  of  gray  cloud  after  the  storm — 
but  they  were  the  soldiers  of  Lee,  Jackson  and 
Beauregard. 


CHAPTER  XL 

ALCfiE  FORTIER 

TJE  does  not  yet  belong  to  the  past  of  New 
-■--^  Orleans.  His  place  among  us  in  the  family 
of  its  citizens  is  still  warm.  His  face  and  figure  are 
still  familiar  to  the  eye,  his  voice,  distinct  to  the  ear. 
The  time  for  the  cool,  detached  historical  apprecia- 
tion of  him  has  not  yet  arrived.  It  belongs  to  the 
future  to  which  he  can  confidently  be  remanded. 
In  truth,  his  life  was  a  compact  one  of  work ;  to  make 
a  succinct  account  of  it  requires  but  small  assistance 
from  personal  detail.  The  name  appears  in  Louisiana 
in  1740  for  the  first  time,  in  the  person  of  Michel 
Fortier  ^'armurier  du  roi,"  a  man  evidently  of  force- 
ful character,  who  took  part  in  the  Galvez  exploits. 
He  married  FeHcite  La  Branche,  a  daughter  of  an 
old  and  distinguished  Creole  family;  and  in  1803  he 
w^as  appointed  by  Laussat  a  member  of  his  municipal 
council,  and  was  one  of  the  four  commissioners  who 
did  the  honors  of  the  beautiful  ball  offered  to 
Madame  Laussat  by  the  City  Council  during  which 
the  pretty  incident,  unique  in  American  festivities, 
took  place.  In  the  midst  of  the  supper,  a  turtle- 
dove ahghted  on  a  branch  of  roses  before  Madame 
de  Laussat  with  a  note  in  its  beak  containing  the 
verse,  written  by  one  of  the  commissioners  entitled, 
''Portrait  de  ]\Iadame  de  Laussat." 

461 


462  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

"On  voit  en  elle 
Les  vertues  et  les  attraits; 
On  voit  le  portrait  fidele 
De  son  ame  dans  ses  traits, 
Affable,  sensible  et  bonne. 
Vertueuse  sans  fierte 
£t  belle  sans  vanity, 
Tout  est  charme  dans  sa  personne." 

He  was  one  of  those  selected  by  Laussat  on  the 
eve  of  his  departure  from  the  province  to  receive  the 
curious  testimonial  of  his  regard.  ' 'Knowing, ' '  *  says 
the  record,  ''that  they  were  all  ardent  hunters  and 
preferred  French  powder,  he  distributed  among 
them  the  supply  of  powder  left,  belonging  to  France; 
giving  it  away  in  small  presents  ranging  from  thirty 
to  forty-five  pounds/' 

In  1814  he  served  on  the  Committee  of  Veterans 
who  were  mentioned  in  General  Jackson's  report  as 
''attending  to  the  preservation  of  police  and  civil 
order  in  the  city  and  contributing  to  dissipate  the 
alarm  created  by  the  approach  of  the  enemy; 
besides  affording  relief  to  the  sick  and  wounded  and 
procuring  subscriptions  for  the  purchase  of  clothing 
for  the  soldiers  who  had  left  their  homes  unprovided 
for  a  winter  campaign.'' 

His  son,  Michel  Fortier,  Jr.,  a  Colonel  of  Mihtia  in 
the  army  under  Jackson,  was  the  father  of  Florent 
Fortier,  who  is  mentioned  gracefully  and  gratefully 
by  his  son  Alcee  in  his  book  'Louisiana  Studies"  as 
"a  true  representative  of  our  Creole  planters,  whom 
V  the  war  had  ruined,  but  who  were  to  the  last  energetic 
and  noble."  Alcee  Fortier  includes  him  among 
Louisiana  poets,  citing  some  of  his  verses  to  La 
Salle. 

*  Fortier's  History  of  Louisiana.    Vol.  II,  pp.  292. 


ALC^E  FORTIER  4G3 

riorent  Fortier  married  Echvigo  Aime,  the  daugh- 
ter of  Valcoiir  Aime,  one  of  the  richest  sugar  planters 
of  St.  James  Parish.  Their  son,  Alc^e,  was  horn  on 
the  great  plantation  in  1856,  the  source  of  his  first 
childish  memories,  which  he  was  fond  of  incorporat- 
ing into  the  relations  of  his  later  life.  Tlie  date  of 
his  birth  fixed  his  destiny  as  a  later  generation  sees  it 
that  of  a  child  born  in  the  luxury  of  wealth  and 
plunged  by  the  results  of  the  Confederate  War,  into 
poverty.  In  one  of  his  pages  he  gives  some  of  his 
earliest  experiences  of  the  war: 

'^After  the  fall  of  New  Orleans,  the  Federal  gun- 
boats ascended  the  river,  and  being  attacked  ])y  the 
Confederate  batteries,  as  they  passed  bombarded 
the  plantations  on  the  bank.  How  wtII  do  I  remem- 
ber the  flight  of  our  whole  family  to  the  river  front 
to  seek  the  protection  of  the  levee  w^ienever  a  gun- 
boat w^as  coming.  There  w^e  stood  behind  the  levee, 
my  sisters  and  myself,  our  schoolmistress  and  our 
nurses,  while  our  father  stood  on  the  levee  to  look 
at  the  gunboats  and  at  the  shells  that  generally 
passed  over  our  heads  but  occasionally  wxre  l^uried 
in  the  levee  and  covered  us  wdth  dust.  Our  house  was 
never  touched  by  the  shells,  but  the  houses  of  a 
number  of  people  our  relatives  were  considerably 
damaged.  I  remember  seeing  cart  loads  of  shells 
strewn  in  the  yards.  I  remember  also  the  holes  dug 
in  the  ground  covered  wuth  thick  beams  and  several 
feet  of  earth,  the  inside  arranged  like  a  comfortable 
room  and  filled  wdth  provisions  of  all  kinds.  Then 
came  the  Federal  soldiers  in  garrison  on  the  planta- 
tion .  .  .  the  insolence  of  some  of  the  liberated 
slaves,  the  temporary  arrest  of  my  father  and  grand- 
father    .     .     .     the  serio-comic  scenes  at  the  pro- 


464  OLD  FAMILIES  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

vost  marshall's  court  .  .  .  then  the  flight  of  the 
family  to  the  Teche  and  the  pillaging  by  the  con- 
quering army;  the  return  home,  and  then  complete 
ruin.  From  this  ruin,  we  sons  of  rich  planters  have 
now  partially  recovered,  and  the  men  of  1894  who 
were  boys  in  1862  do  not  keep  any  unkind  remem- 
brance of  war  times. '^ 

Like  most  patriots  of  his  time,  Florent  Fortier 
feared  poverty  only  as  it  would  affect  the  future  of 
his  children;  and  like  them  he  made  heroic  efforts 
not  to  replace  the  vanished  luxuries  of  wealth  but  to 
educate  his  children.  Alcee  was  given  the  oppor- 
tunity of  attending  the  University  of  Virginia,  but 
unfortunately  could  not  complete  his  course  there 
owing  to  ill  health.  Returning,  however,  he  put  his 
shoulder  to  the  work  of  educating  others;  he  became 
an  instructor  and  then  principal  of  the  preparatory 
department  of  the  University  of  Louisiana.  In  1880 
he  was  chosen  as  professor  of  French  in  the  univer- 
sity and  retained  the  position  when  the  University 
of  Louisiana  became  the  Tulane  University,  and 
then  he  became  also  professor  of  Romance  languages. 
This  was  his  great  work  in  the  State,  giving  the 
French  language  a  standard  place  in  education.  He 
will  always  be  accounted  one  of  the  foremost  educa- 
tors of  the  South.  In  New  Orleans  he  was  active 
in  all  intellectual  work.  He  became  President  of 
the  Athenee  Louisianais  and  was  President  of  the 
Louisiana  Historical  Society  from  its  reorganization 
in  1894  until  the  time  of  his  death;  President  of  the 
Modern  Language  Association ;  member  of  the  State 
Board  of  Education,  and  of  the  State  Museum  Board. 

His  work  as  a  writer  and  as  a  lecturer  proceeded 
from  his  educational  reputation;  he  became  an  assidu- 


ALC^E  FORTIER  465 

ous  worker  in  both  fields,  contribiitinp;  many  publica- 
tions to  general  literature  and  philology.  His  most 
valuable  contribution,  according  to  the  estimation 
of  contemporar}^  beneficiaries,  is  his  ''Louisiana 
Studies,''  pubUshed  in  1894,  which)  contains  frag- 
ments of  his  folklore  and  personal  reminiscences  and 
his  original  researches  into  the  literature  of  Louisiana, 
compiHng  with  precise  accuracy  the  hst  of  all  authors, 
French  and  American,  from  the  beginning  of  the 
colony  to  the  time  of  his  writing. 

For  school  purposes  he  made  incursions  into  the 
history  and  literature  of  France,  and  produced 
therefrom  the  good  educational  papers  on  ''Le 
Chateau  de  Chambord,"  Sept  grands  auteurs  ''du 
XIX  Siecle";  ''Histoire  de  la  Littdrature  Frangaise'^* 
'Tr^cis  de  I'Histoire  de  France.'^  His  last  work  is 
moniunental:  ''The  History  of  Louisiana"  in  four 
volumes,  published  in  1894  by  Manzi,  Joyant  &  Co., 
New  York. 

He  died  in  1914  and  hes  buried  in  his  old  family 
tomb  in  St.  Louis  Cemetery. 


PRINTED  IX  THE  UXITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA. 


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